"Hello, Gallo. It's good to see another member of the Church interested in helping the faithful. Haven't I seen you around the cathedral before?"
Zilroy squints, trying to remember where he has seen the paladin before.
"It's possible, though I don't get up that way too often anymore. They think I'm... well, they object to some of my interpretations of the faith."
"And it's Gallows, brother. You know, like the leafless tree."
He mimes a noose, hand on his throat, tongue out.
His macabre charades over with, he scratches his beard and tries to reason out a plan for the warehouse.
"I suggest we look around the neighborhood, make some inquiries. Not about the warehouse, but about the Pale Dogs around here. I don't think breaking in is justified until we have a little more evidence that something is going on in there counter to Ptolus' legal code. If breaking in becomes necessary, I think we aught to head in ready for trouble, probably from the front and back."
"And besides, they may decide to leave a trap for whoever shows up if they did find out the job wasn't done. Based on the quality of their hired men, I'm not very scared of whatever they may have planned."
"Hmm. If it were a nobleman or someone else with a lot of wealth, Phon would be dead by now. Someone with money or connections wouldn't want to go halfway: they would hire a Vai assassin or send one of their own. In other words: they would hire professional killers, not a few cowardly Pale Dogs. Furthermore, extra-marital affairs and bastard children are nothing unusual for those people: probably not worth worrying about. What we're dealing with is someone that feels they have a lot to lose if this comes to light but not a lot of money to spend on keeping it quiet. Likely a tradesman, bureaucrat, guardarm or clergyman."
"If it is your wish that we investigate this, I can put my other inquiries aside for the time being. No payment is necessary."
Gallows sneaks a finger under his eyepatch, scratches at the skin underneath.
"The note contains little information: simply Phon's address and a brief description and a meeting place on Able row, tomorrow night 2 hours after sunset. I imagine more information can be found there... if we bring the right currency."
His left hand drifts to his sword.
"You said you were concerned for the lady? Is she in some trouble with the Pale Dogs? Is it money? Or something else?"
"Yes, ma'am. This man," Gallows motions to the thug he's dragged with him,"and his associates attacked this woman in an alley near the Ghostly Minstrel. We have evidence that it was a hired assault. I would like to turn him over to your custody; he has surrendered and cooperated since his capture."
The one-eyed paladin seems oblivious to the fact that he's soaked from head to toe.
Gallows shakes his head with a scowl.
"I hope your faith is stronger than it seems, Brother. One man today, a conspiracy of them tomorrow night 2 hours after dusk. The night after? Only Lothian knows. Regardless, I agree: let us make haste to St. Gustav's and the watch station."
"Even I know 'street' doesn't have an a in it.", grumbles the one eyed paladin.
"What we have here is evidence that this was a hired hit and a lead on where we can go to get to the bottom of this. I have a few ideas, but I'd like to get this fellow to a constable before any further discussion."
"Hmmph. So this was pre-meditated? This attack was arranged, on this particular woman? Why? What were you being compensated? Do you know who hired you?"
Gallows turns to the cowering bully, seeming to revel in his fear a bit.
"You hear that? Premeditated murder, you know where that leads, eh? A long swing from a short rope and a crowd to watch, too. I'd say you're a very lucky man we caught you before you did something really stupid. Wouldn't you agree?"
"You've picked up too much attention, buddy," Tusker tells the remaining thug. "You've got no angle here. You can't fight all of us, and you wouldn't get anything out of it if you did 'cept a beating. Get out of here while you're still intact."
"Run off? Why? So he can find another victim, someone without a cadre of handsome, dashing rescuers?", Gallows shakes his head,"No, if I have any say in it you're facing a magistrate, followed by a gaoler."
He turns to Nym, trying to keep his good eye toward the remaining thug.
"Now what part did you play in this, exactly? You weren't out here looking for flowers to bring your grandmother, I'm sure."
Gallows glances between Zilroy, the woman, and the young man (Nym?) before taking a few steps toward the remaining bully.
"This is precisely my business.,"he says," Sacrilege and attempted rape all at once? Not good, friend, not wise."
Jerking his head toward Nym. "We'll worry about this powerful enchanter that stole your will and forced you to turn your grabby hands toward this young woman later. Put that knife down and put your hands up where I can see them. The worst you'll face is a few short years in prison if you let up now, maybe less if you can tell us where your friend is heading."
Gallows draws his weapon and can't help but smile. It's not a pleasant sight.
"You know, there are few things simpler in life than a cowardly lot of back alley rapists and murderers. Almost like cockroaches, really; you think you've swatted them all, but as soon as the lights go out, there they are again. You don't seem like the brightest lot of cockroaches I've ever seen, so I'm going to say this very slowly and clearly: get your filthy, worthless hands off of her or I'll cut them off myself."
Invisible Castle wasn't working for me, so I rolled with a real die. Intimidate check: 1d20+3= 11
Tusker is a tall, broad half-orc, dressed tonight in a simple cloak over sturdy clothes and a small pouch, but the curved blade of a scimitar gleams beneath the cloak. Though his sounds are somwhat distorted by the large tusks that jut up from his lower lip, for the most part he sounds not at all like a typical half-orc - his accent is Ptolus local, and his Common is fluid and easy. "Not much for cider, but I'll stand you one all the same if you like," Tusker says, gesturing to the seat across the table. "Arcane symbols, eh?"
GM? Is there a roll I need here?
Gallows takes a seat, blowing his drink cool.
"Aye, symbols of some sort like a divine maker's mark. I've heard that there are different people, born high and low, with similar marks throughout the city. It'd take a brighter man than myself to make heads or tails of it, but I'm trying to figure it out."
Gallows approaches the half-orc (Tusker); he's obviously a fighting man, wearing his chainmail, weapons and shield along with the symbol of Lothian around his neck. He'd be handsome if he weren't missing an eye (covered by an eye patch of course).
"Try the cider, friend: finest around to keep the chill out of your bones. Forgive me for saying so, but you seem the type that knows the lay of the land. I got a friend that told me about some weird birthmark he saw around town and that got curious if anyone else had seen some. Arcane type birthmarks, like a letter for a language you'd never seen."
Gallows strides to the Ghostly Minstrel for the evening rush, stomping the mud from his boots before coming in and pulling off his drenched cloak. When he thinks no one is looking except Lothian, he sneaks a scratch under his eye patch. Always tender in this weather. He'll survey the room for anyone he may know and then head to the bar to order a hot cider.
Once he's payed for his drink, he'll start to mingle, gripe about the weather despite the fact that it rains quite often in Ptolus and try to bring up the matter of the runic birthmarks.
"You know, it might not rate as the strangest thing I've seen in this city but I saw a young kid the other day that must have had a tattoo or something on his wrist! Some rune mark or other out of a wizard's tome. I was almost as wroth as a hanging judge when I thought of what sort of parent would do that to their child."
Diplomacy check: 1d20+7=17
Gallows is ready for a look. I opted for the skill point rather than a hit point.
Background, sorry it's really long.
Spoiler:
I had to lose an eye to really see. Lothian showed me, that night in the Warrens. But perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself.
I don't remember too much about my parents, except that I loved them and was happy when I was with them. The good parts are hazy; all I can see clearly is the day they were hung. Davrel, that stern wonderful bastard, dragged me there himself. I had my eyes and my ears covered and I was crying my head off ("crying my head off", attending an execution? Ha ha? Not funny?). I didn't hear their crime when it was read. I didn't want to be there. I didn't want to see. But Davrel pulled my hands from my eyes when the hangman pulled the lever and the floor fell out. When I shut my eyes, he put a hand on my brow and held them open that way. I don't remember much about my parents.
Father Davrel was a lovable sort, huh? He's head of the orphanage in Midtown. Davrel's tough on his charges, always has been. Being raised by a dwarf is bad enough, but a dwarf with a divine mandate to switch you at every opportunity? Tough stuff. I hated him for most of my life for the day my parents hung from the scaffolding and he made me watch. "Gallows child" he called me when he lost patience (which was often) and the other kids took it up. There's nothing a bunch of orphaned and damaged kids want more than another kid to take it out on. But he also saw something in me and he recommended me to squire for one of the paladins working with the guard, a woman named Alessa.
Alessa wasn't bad, at first. We got along okay and she was a lot nicer than Davrel (not hard). She didn't mind if I was a little strange and I did my job well enough. She even called me "Simon", the moniker my loving parents had given me. It was when I was toward the end of my term of service, age 17, that we fell out. We were eating at a tavern near the docks after a raid on a gang of smugglers (she and a few other knights had been called in to handle some undead and evil spellcasters). Squires don't talk unless they're talked to, you know? Especially when other knights are around.
Well, some drunk at the next table was giving my mistress the eye, you know? Making comments. And I'm not supposed to stand for that. It's beneath her to notice, but not beneath mine. So I walk over and tell this drunk to mind his manners, real calm and courteous like I'm supposed to. He tells me to shove it where the sun don't shine, he'll look where he likes. I've done my job, I've got my response. I'm supposed to sit down and be discrete, right? Wait until he asks me outside so it wasn't me causing trouble. But then he says something about me. Then he says something about my parents (keep in mind, I hadn't known what they had done). I didn't wait until he asked me, hell, I didn't wait until we were outside. I socked him right where he sat. Alessa broke up the fight, then chewed me out in front of everyone and took her coat of arms from my tabard. I wasn't a squire any more and I would never be a knight.
From there I took up as a guard at a little chapel in Midtown, on the border with the really bad part of town. They needed someone to watch the collections, make sure no one messed with the priests and congregation. I didn't mind it, but I carried a lot of anger around. I hated everyone and everything and if I had known anything outside of Ptolus, I would have picked up and left. So one night (I was 19, I remember) this real unsavory type swipes something from the alms plate. It was the middle of the sermon, so I couldn't say anything. But I kept in his area for the whole time in case he ran. After the priest was done, I grabbed him and demanded he empty out his pockets. He gave me the song and dance. The priest told me to let him go, that he had seen the whole thing and didn't care. That this guy needed it if he was stealing from the church. I couldn't believe it. So off he went, with a pocket full of stolen money meant to feed poor families and keep the roof from leaking in the chapel.
I couldn't let it go. I just couldn't. I got a sense of him from asking around; a small time thief and thug living in the Warrens. No family to speak of, but a habit for fallen women and booze. One of thousands, I'm sure, knowing Ptolus like I do. I found him one night outside a really crummy looking tavern. I demanded the money back. He spit in my face. We had a little fist fight in the muddy gutter. I was over-confident, assuming that a trained fighter against a scrapper would always win. I didn't know how high the stakes were. I didn't see. He pulled a knife, gave me a few cuts. I gave him some more bruises (I still wasn't mad enough to try and kill him; this was just a few coins after all). Until he got lucky and took my eye out.
I knew enough to stay up, to avoid falling to my knees screaming "my eye! my eye!". He almost got me again, but I avoided it through luck alone. I hit him in the side of the head and he fell. I forgot all about why I was fighting him in the first place. I had to get my eye taken care of. The priest at the chapel wouldn't help me, though. He said I had picked a fight when he told me not to, that I fought for pride and not for Lothian or the people of this chapel. I was furious, because I knew he was right. I thought I knew how the world was, I thought I could block out my eyes and ears and avoid the truth my whole life. That I had failed as a squire, that my parents could have been innocent if I just kept it from myself long enough. Lothian had to show me otherwise. I hadn't been using that eye, so he took it from me.
Before I could have it healed, before I could move on, I had to know. I had to see. So I staggered, bleeding, to the orphanage where I grew up. Davrel was up, of course, handling some paperwork. He was surprised to see me, from his quizzical eyebrow, but his face remained impassive.
"Davrel,"I croaked, panting and shaking (I had lost a lot of blood),"what did my parents do? Why were they killed?"
He considered me a long moment and said, plain as day,"They were Chaos cultists. They worshipped the devils imprisoned below and smuggled resources to other cults."
I passed out.
But in my feverish state, I learned. I saw. Davrel wasn't being cruel, he was trying to make me accept that people can be decent on the surface and still be rotten underneath. He knew that if I grew up thinking that my parents were good people that had been unjustly executed, that if my only memories were fond ones, then I might well fall into the same business they had. Sometimes justice is cold, but it needs witnesses nonetheless. The chip on my shoulder got smaller and I stopped hating the dwarf. My eye had been attended to when I woke. I explained to Davrel what I had learned, what I believed: that Lothian had guided my attacker's hand to blind me and that a wound to the flesh was a boon to the spirit.
"Gallows", he said and shook his head,"Lothian isn't a crime lord or a loan shark. He doesn't mutilate people to send a message."
But I know I'm right. It was after that day that I could feel my god's presence in me. That I could sense foul evil in the hearts of men and monsters and deliver my lord's justice in a swift and powerful strike when I felt their wickedness. Even Davrel couldn't deny it and while the other paladins question my sanity, call me an apostate and a heretic, they don't question my devotion. My parents served Chaos. I will set myself against it and the Knights of the Pale will one day recognize my devotion and invite me into their midst. I am a knight now and I will rise to meet the enemies of my god and my city, every wound a divine insight.
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