"Sounds like a plan."
So group 2 will head out to maintain surveillance, while group 1 will rest. At night we change and group 2 should do their thing in order to maintain cover of traveling entertainers. Good for everyone?
"I work best at night, but it sounds like a good plan."
He turned to Adra. "Anything specific you want me to do this evening. Being an entertainer isn't really what I'm good at."
With a meeting place and plan of action in place, things seem to finally be going well. For his part Rebnesk decided to do outside surveillance. He first picks up some food for the two birds and heads back to the wagon. While sitting in the cage with Bloodwing he sends Littlewing out to the two buildings they were supposed to do recon on. Using his empathetic link and the Beast Tongue Leash he has his aerial companion fly around both buildings, watching guard rotation and looking out for the target while also keeping a low profile.
After that he meets with Adra and Shokal to determine what they should do for the show. His idea for his part is to of course do a falconry exhibition with a little archer on the side. Part of his argument is that Bloodwing needs to stretch his wings and seeing as a lot of probably know about the bird by now, squawking at everything that came near the wagon has not been helping, they will be expecting him to come out.
Then after all that, back to the meeting place to share information and hand over the investigation.
"Sounds like a workable plan... Shokal as long as you help set up and take down, we can pass you off as hired muscle. So during the show... maybe mingle with the crowd and see if you can gather information? Or try timing how long it takes to get back to the wagon from our target's house? As for you, Rebnesk, can you tweak your act to have a Convocation-esque spinn to it? It would tie in well with Amelia's 'Shaman' act... Otherwise it sounds llike a good show."
As you travel through town, you definitely hear excitement building about your group's "show", so much so that by the time you get back to your wagon, you see a line of people waiting to buy tickets.
Shokal will help set up the stage and will handle the ticket sales and "security" after that is done.
Rebnesk looks nervously at the crowd gathered round the wagon. His fidgeting almost caused him to loose his hat and reveal his true identity. But he was on a mission and that came first. That meant maintaining his cover. Unfortunately, with so many people around it was going to be impossible to scout today. So instead he sifted through the many odds and ends in the wagon to come up with a show and worked with Adra for she would have to speak for him.
After setting everything up he walks onto the stage with Littlewing, which is quite the feat since the bird is almost as big as him. He looks like a human child dressed in riding leathers and a helmet with goggles. It is an odd outfit that doesn't make since until later in the show. The first bit is a bit of falconry, showcasing the aerial agility of the little hawk. He sends it flying to pre-set stands in the crowd, flying after thrown targets and circling the crowd.
After the falconry he moves on to what turns into a lion taming/riding event. He has Bloodwing come out and pretend to be vicious predator that only he can control. The fear on the faces of the humans is enough to remove a lot of his nervousness. After "taming" the bird he hops on and goes for a flight around the square showing off his riding skills and his companions aerial skills. The whole time he never says anything, communicating with his companions through clicks and whistles or through the Leash.
As the crowd gathers Gidgey goes up to Urgosh. So should we head out now?
Spending hours in tree form always amde Adra’s joints ache, so she slowly heads back to the wagon, stopping along the way to buy a bag of candies.
Adra makes sure that the performance area is set up correctly. The fold down side of the wagon is pulled out and the curtains closed. She ensures the cauldron she has is set up in the middle of the stage. After that she sets up a barrier a good 30-40 yeards from the stage. She then informs Shokal to collect 2 copper a head or a silver a family for anyone wanting to stand, or sit, within the barrier. Anyone else is free to stay outside it, though donations are appriciated.
With most of the set up done she proceeds to head to the wagon with her mirror and makeup. After an almost excessively long time she exits the wagon looking like an almost caricature of a dwarf. When no one is looking she lets Kvinn fly off and hide herself.
When ready everyone is ready, she starts the show with a bang. She pulls a little bead from her many layered outfit and tosses it into the cauldron. With a word the cauldron bursts into flame and Adra approaches from the shadows.
"Welcome, one and all, welcome to Amelia's Mysteries of the World. Tonight we start with a death defying performance by the one and only Bird Master. From a young age this boy has been avle to communicate with birds, sometimes even taming them. But tonight we have a treat, an untamed Roc from the barbarian lands to the east. Enjoy!"
With this she bows and lets Rebnesk take the stage. During his act she pulls out a wand and tries to get the blasted thing working.
She luckily gets the first time and casts prestidigitation on herself.
After Rebnesk finishes his performance, Adra give the command word to her campfire bead and the stage and the audience is plunged into darkness.
"According to the ancient shamans the world at it's inception was a cold and dark place, populated with many spirits. The spirits only knew of the cold and the dark and soon despaired. All but one spirit that is. She decided to re-imagine herself as a spririt of light." With this Adra releases a spray of little light motes, almost resembling cheap fireworks.
"This spirit soon encouraged many, and even inspired her consort to join her, becoming the spirit of heat. This made Light so enamored she burned even brighter." Adra releases a large ball of light that hovers over the stage for a few seconds before disappearing.
"The transformations of both Heat and Light soon inspired others to follow in their steps, becoming the many things we see and know today. With each change Light and Heat became more and more powerful until the two became the sun." Finishing this part of her show Adra pulls out a series of balls. She shakes each one, in turn, vigorously, while chanting something. Each ball slowly starts to glow an almost chemical orange, she sets them down to light the stage.
"The spirits soon found forms and shapes that they were happy with and settled down, but things shortly became stagnant and lonely. Petitioned to do something about this, the Sun, in their wisdom, decided to create new spirits, spirits that would move and change through a limited time span before joining their brethren in a more permanent form. They created animals and insects, plants and birds, and even a few sentient creatures. At first these spirits were able to take a form as they chose and this lead to all variety of shapes and sizes. This lead to too much variety and confusion, and the Sun soon decreed that all new spirits must fit set standards and so the animal and plant and sentient creatures soon settled. However, occasionally a spirit is born which defies these and chooses her own form.We have one such with us tonight."
Adra hoots softly and down from her hiding space Kvinn slowly, and presumptuously, lands on Adra's outstretched arm. Adra then hands the bird half of the bag of candies she bought earlier and has the owl fly close to the crowd, dropping candies as she goes.
After her moment in the spot light Adra has Kvinn stay on stage, almost acting as an assistant, for the next part of the performance. Adra pulls on stage a tall box with a side cut out and a curtain installed instead. She shows the inside of the box to the audience confirming it is clear. She states, "If one knows how they can even supposedly still cause the spirits to act and move. For this I will need a volunteer..."
From the audience she picks one member with their hand raised. With a flick of the wrist he disappears with a slight gust and the curtain attached to the box trembles. Kvinn pulls back the curtain to expose the lucky, or unlucky, audience member. Adra gives him or her a piece of candy and lets them get back to the audience.
For the rest of her show she performs little harmless acts, using spells like color spray or polymorph familiar, and always giving the participants a piece of candy for their troubles. At the end of the show she gets down of the stage, and, with Rebnesk, hopefully still atop Bloodwing, invites the members to come greet the birds.
Finally released from the wagon and the two most boring birds she had met since her parents, Kvinn gladly takes to the skies and hides behind the wagon. She has always loved attention and this show promised to bring more than she every had experienced before.
When called by Adra, Kvinn takes the time to reach the old woman, intentionally showing her night-sky colored plumage. Once there she starts preening herself while the old woman goes on and on. Finally she is handed the bag of candies and takes to the sky, happy to try win the adoration of the little children.
After reaching the stage again, Kvinn uses prestidigitation on herself and tries to garner as much attention as she can from the crowd. She at times interrupts Adra's explanation or act and occasionally elicits a laugh or two.
After the show the owl is perfectly happy to be petted, and occasionally fed by anyone who approaches. She even sometimes lands on the head of a little child or two, and hooting joyously. If she scares any of the children the owl quickly gets down and tries to nuzzle the scared child with her soft down... though this doesn't always help and Adra has to recall her several times.
Yes Gadget we are heading out to are appointed task
As the day passes on, over a hundred people cycle through the ticket line. None of them pose a danger to your group or operation, but Shokal does have to deal with quite a few screaming children. In the early evening hours you see several groups of bodyguards that approach separately and purchase a bundle of tickets. Each group of bodyguards sports a different house tabard. All in all, 5 different house representatives show up.
As you are selling tickets, when one of the group of bodyguards approaches, you are taken aback for a moment, as he matches the description of your target! Giving him a closer look, however, it seems more likely that he is a close relative, like a brother or a son.
You see the tabards that bear the crest of houses Lean'sith, Colgar, Alindas, Maoril, and Atiges.
.......................................................................
As the group doing surveillance approaches the mansion that the head of House Lean'sith resides in, you can see that he has spared little expense protecting his home. House Lean'sith is covered in multiple overlapping auras which you would recognize as belonging to the schools of abjuration, conjuration, enchantment, and illusion. There are guards that patrol the walls at irregular intervals, and there is something unusual about the composition of the walls themselves: they appear to be made of frosted crystal.
This material is Deep crystal, a form of crystal that is smooth, hard as metal, and has the capability to store psionic energy. This much deep crystal could potentially store thousands of power points
Rebnesk takes notice of a man in the crowd that bears a striking resemblance to the one they are after. He also sees that Shokal has noticed him as well and they share a nod. Between shows he writes up a small note and attaches it to Littlewing. He then signals the bird to deliver the message to Gidgey.
As Adra occasionally catches glimpses of uniforms she tries to remember what they represented... ... luckily the houses haven't changed too much since she the last time she had traded with the city decades upon decades ago.
Knowledge skills are her bread and butter; but, I don't want to take over both rolls when others can accomplish it as well.
Gidgey attempts to understand the frosted wall.
Shokal didn't like the screaming children much, mostly because they were so loud, but he needed to play his part. So he sucked it up and did his job.
Maybe we could use the relative to get to our target. Best talk with the others about this after the show ...
Gidgey then notices a bird chirping in a nearby tree, its littlewing who drops him a message. Gidgey reads it and then hands it over to Urgosh.
Should I go back?
As you are debating what to do, you see a group of bodyguards approach the house. They are recognized and immediately let into the front gate. After about 20 minutes or so, the group reemerges, this time with a man that can only be your target, Acastus Lean'sith, in tow. They begin heading back in the direction that the bodyguards arrived in. They are unhurried, and appear to be in good spirits.
As the curtain time on the show nears, the area in front of Adra's wagon begins quickly filling up with people (several hundred at least) and 5 distinct groups show up towards the back of the show, yet spaced far enough away from each other that they do not have to interact. Each of these groups represents a different noble house. Below are the descriptions of each house representative
The representative of House Lean'sith needs no introduction. You could easily pick out your target, Acastus Lean'sith, from any crowd, even if he weren't surrounded by some of the most attractive elan women you have ever seen. Each appears nearly identical, both in body language and in dress. They all have dark hair (of slightly differing shades), green, blue, or purple eyes, and the posture of one who guards others for a living. They are all wearing gowns, but their gowns are cut in such a way as to not significantly impede their movement. None of them are armed.
The representative of House Colgar is a young man with blonde hair and yellow eyes in his early 20s (if you had to guess). He wears the robes of a member of the council, and he is surrounded by a group of what are clearly sycophants. The only people who stand out near him are the pair of Golaith bodyguards who stand behind him. Each wears glowing fullplate, and each is armed with a tower shield and Gladius.
The representative of House Alindas is an Elan woman who wears clothing that appears to be a few seasons out of fashion in the city. She is unaccompanied except for a single bodyguard, a human who has neither visible weapons nor armor.
Carrying himself as if he were Auronis' gift to women, the representative of House Maoril is wearing what appears to be mourning clothes, yet are cut in such a way as to be both form-fitting and accentuating of his physical features. He has an all-female entourage, many of whom are dressed in gowns of the nobility. He is chatting easily with all of them while waiting for the show to start.
The representative of House Atiges has a bearing of a soldier. Incredibly attractive, She is obviously well respected given the way that she is treated by those around her. She is also the only representative of any house that is unaccompanied. Arriving early, she chats up a young (and clearly intimidated) nobleman, who ends up standing with her as her "armcandy". The representative of House Alindas will sneak her venomous looks whenever she believes herself to be unobserved.
That's a lot of people, Rebnesk thinks from inside the wagon. He gulps nervously. His confidence was lacking already and now it was threatening to shatter completely. The only thing keeping him together was the training he had received and that this was a mission for the Convocation. And not only that. His target sat in the crowd. This was no time to lose his nerve. Still when Adra introduced him he shuffled onto the stage slowly, sliding his feet in an exaggerated movement. The audience thought it funny. But once he started working with his companions the nervousness ebbed away. On the back of his friend Bloodwing it was almost completely gone as with almost all thoughts of the mission. It was just the two of them flying high, where no one could reach them. When they landed and completed the show he bowed and lead them back into the wagon to rest. Once settled he continued to watch the crowd and their target. He considered sending Littlewing to follow but thought that an unwise move. Now they knew what the bird looked like and would be far to conspicuous.
DM: Urgosh will start tailing the target and his body guard.
Acastus and his bodyguards take a circuitous route, stopping and talking to various business owners and taking in a meal at a local tavern, before finally arriving at the show.
Urgosh will move toward Gadget
The other thing you notice while tailing the target is that his group of guards dwindles as they progress through town. One or two will stay behind at each of the stops, apparently to talk with the shopowners, although they are scanning the road as well.
Gidgey goes backstage and talks to anyone who is not currently on stage and casts message to anyone that is, informing them that The target is here with 20 guards. We should strike now! Urgosh suggests having the beast.. maybe he meant bloodwing… rampaging into the crowd. While we go invisible and attack him
With uncanny accuracy and speed an arrow appears next to Gidgey's head, imbedded into the wooden frame of the wagon. "Bloodwing not beast and I will not sacrifice my friend for the mission," he hisses angrily. There were far too many guards out there for this to be an effective plan. If Bloodwing tried to attack the people he had little doubt the bird would be dropped by a barrage of attacks from the guards of the noble families in the crowd.
Well if we have some other beast… don't we have horses or something that pulled the cart? We can make them look like something else... Gidgey suggested
"You can use the mare, but she is our get away and is extremely recalcitrant... She's almost worse than Kvinn, as a far as being a stubborn pain. If you like I can readily entangle everyone and make it hard for them to move much less escape. I can even call down some lightning to clear the plaza if you'd like..." Adra replies during one of her "spells" that doesn't require a verbal component...
Rebnesk shakes his head violently at the talk of attacking now. "W-w-we attack now, they w-w-will all defend. N-n-no chance. Might be r-r-reading minds now. D-d-don't think about it."
I could set up some grease traps around the perimeter and send some fireworks or fire into the crowd
"Maybe not into... Is from the crowd possible?"
Rebnesk grabs Adra's arm and, when he has her attention, shakes his head. Being a Kobold he knew quite a bit about ambushes. They could make up a large difference in strength if executed properly. But if they weren't prepared or well planned they had made up a lot less. The three of them had just joined the team and therefore had little practical experience in working together. An ambush like this would require a good bit of synergy. Best to gather what information they could and not make the enemy aware of their intentions. Another opportunity would present itself. Hopefully. If they attacked, he would do his part to help but he wouldn't commit to something that looked like suicide and foil any later attempts.
Yeah its possible, I could go invisible or just sneak through