Sense Motive
"Do us a favor and don't bother attempting deception young "Squeaker". You're barely old enough to have had the honor of being in a guild let alone getting kicked out. So either you truly annoyed someone and this was the choice between a new life or the sort of criminal enforcement that involves dark alleys and blunt objects or you're lying for the benefit of impressing us."
Selvan leans in a bit closer the tall wasp like elfavian towering over the boy.
"So just stick to the facts if you would. Thank you."
"Hmmph, well they don't count if you don't get paid for 'em. I got one so far." He beams. "Price on 'is 'ead. Just the 'ead." He grins infectiously.
"Bah, there's always idiots what do stuff outside the guild. And some guild what disobey the Resolute Lady. But nobody who's admitting to anything." He says, looking thoughtful. "But this is weird, honestly. The people I asked agreed there'd been a real uptick in magic items recently, but they couldn't figure it out either. It's not like someone started smuggling or something, it's like a whole new smuggling guild started up. Like, if there was one magic item per month smuggled in, now there's like, twenty or thirty a month being smuggled in. But nobody's seen much being smuggled in, just the normal stuff."
The boy looks up at Selvan, and then spits at the elvavian's feet. "Shtock you, pointy ears. Thieves guild recruits young, like at 8. I was stealing stock when you were still trying to figure out how to get it out of your pants and into your sister." He stands up, all smiles gone, and his hand swirls with dark energy. "So shtock off or I'll make sure you don't get your sister preggers next time you meet!"
Selvan seems more amused by the juvenile outburst then anything. "So I'm right then? Good. And now I can see why you're here with us as well. Now that we have that out of the way we can get some business done."
Turning away from the boy and finding a comfrtable chair to recline himself in Selvan asks mildly. "An operation that big must have a very wealthy backer. Magic items are not cheap even on the surface as far as I know."
"That's right, you'd better run. You're at least a wee bit smarter than your pal, here!" Alister shouts off into the darkness, shaking a fist in the general direction of where the men went off to.
"I'm on my way, fellas," he shouts, running around the building towards his companions and their apparent attacker.
Alys, being completely surprised by the way Selvan has seen through the boy's intentions, decides she'd let him do most of the talking for now, and sits back down on her desk.
Between Connor's crossbow, and his construct's slam attack, the last attacker goes down.
The last attacker is dying, but not dead. Alister's is dead, and the one injured by Reaghar is bleeding out.
Alister's corpse has 50gp in a small bag, and another 2 gp, 3sp, and 12cp on him. He's wearing a set of grub leather armor and has a club.
Reaghar's man has 50gp in a small bag, and another 3gp, 5sp, and 4cp. He's wearing a set of grub studded leather armor and has a club also.
Connor's man has 50gp in a small bag, and another 5gp, 8sp, and 6cp. He's wearing a grub chainmail shirt and has a club.
They will bleed out shortly unless someone can heal them (and I don't think anyone has heal or psionic healing ability, so I expect they'll be dead in less than a minute).
Squeaker growls at the older man, then spits on the floor near his feet again. Finally, swallowing his anger, he moves to the door of the office and looks at Sam and Alys. "Anything else you want before I go?" He growls as politely as he can, obviously no longer interested in talking.
"Looks like you fellas handled yourselves pretty well, eh? No-one got too hurt, at least, none of us did..." he says, wiping spatters of blood from his brow. "I'm pretty sure the one who attacked me is dead outright," he says, motioning to the back of the building.
"Merely your thoughts. Your honest thoughts mind, on where you think they're coming from and where they're going when they get here. Beyond that.." Selvan looks to the others to see what they had in mind.
Reaghar tries to stem the flow of bleeding on the one who still breathes raggedly.
"Maybe we can find out what they were here for. The fact they all have a small bag of the same amount of gold tells me they were paid. What should we do with the dead ones?"
Alys, resting her head on her hands, looks back at Selvan with a mixed expression of mild disgust and annoyance: "He could clean that up..." she mutters indicating the spittle on the floor with a quick glance.
"Well, it's settled. I'm no surgeon."
Sam gestures at the spit on the floor and the air around him hums slightly as the smear begins to evaporate. "You can go, mouse, we'll find you if we need you," he says before turning to the others.
"Way I see it, we've got two ways to do this. Long way involves getting hired on with a smuggling crew and getting to know the local scene enough to ask the right questions. That could take months or years, since we're trying to earn the trust of people whose livelihoods are base on paranoia. Short way is we follow the money, see if we can get a foot in the door through some riskier means. Making a good impression on a rich and complacent boss might be easier than working our way up through the ranks. Might get us killed too."
Connor dropped the crossbow and bolts, as his Astral Construct faded back into nothingness. The young Humavian went to the prone attacker, and tried to see if he could stop the bleeding from the wounds. After a few seconds, Conner looked back at Reaghar and said "I think this one's dead as well."
As Alister joined them, Connor looked around, seeing if the attackers' clothes held Clan colors. "Well..." he began, "I think the first thing we do is strip and hide the bodies. Maybe we can see who sent them? Or, uh, find some heavy rocks and some rope and, uh, push them off of the docks? Unless you guys want to inform our employers?" the young man finished hesitatingly. His hands moved his attacker's coin purse to his own belt.
Pocketing the money off of his erstwhile patient, Reaghar says "Well, maybe the folks who hired us to guard this stuff would know who they are. I would say it wouldn't hurt to inform them. Maybe they'll give us a bonus, hah! Unlikely, but we will see."
The boy growls at Sammark. "Squeaker you shtocking moron, not mouse!" But before anyone can respond, he turns on his heals and leaves, slamming the door behind him. "I hope you all get a magic wand shoved up your shtocking..." The slamming door cuts off the last word.
The office echo's the slam for several seconds.
"Ah, teenage ego. Mine was crushed within thirty seconds of being officially inducted into the academy. To my credit I was the last one of my class standing."
Addressing the others he gets down to business. "The short way is preferable. Someone is profiting by this and they are our true targets for better or worse."
"You must be fun at parties, Selvan.", Alys comments; "I suppose that is the best option we have right now, so we might as well try."
"Ah, well. We tried to keep em alive, at least," he says, looking down at the bodies. I think it'd be best to keep our employers informed. It'd cause less problems than having the bodies found later, I'd think.
"Selvan, we should hit the drop points our contact left us and get some better gear before we do anything drastic. I didn't want the mouse around for that."
[Ooc] tell the bosses when shift change comes or they check on us. I wouldnt say go running up to them now. [Ooc]
The next morning, the Reville people show up, your shift change. In addition is a very large bald man with gray wings and eyes. Once you explain the situation, he laughs. "Damn teamsters..." He pokes at the bodies, double checking the faces. "Yeah, I recognize this lot. Hired muscle. You lot did a good job. Never know about new hires, especially ones recommended by Teelie. She's usually a good judge of muscle, but sometimes she let's her conna do the thinking." He laughs, giving Reaghar a hard hit on the arm. "Looks like you can satisfy the girls and break some heads, Red-eye." He motions to the new trio. "Make sure this lot get dumped with weights off the next fishing boat." The trio nod, and seem to be not phased one wit about the smelly corpses in their warehouse.
He turns back to the Reaghar and his allies. "You lot drop by the Sotted Oyster this afternoon, I'll send word and might even see ya there. I'm Gray by the way."
Alister smiles at the big man. "Nice to meetcha, Gray. Alister McRauth."
When the trio arrives at the Oyster, it's later than Reaghar showed up last time, and the tavern is fuller and has a small band in the corner playing jigs. They are welcomed in by smiling people who raise a tankard to them as they enter and a round of 'Ahoy!'s. They are shown to a table in the back corner, and Connor and Alister are introduced to Manta, an older man with grayish hair and blood red wings. "Nice to meet you two fellas, Gray was impressed with how well you dealt with those teamster hires." He says over the sound of dancing, music, and drunken sailors. He waves at the table and a waiting waitress puts down a mug of ale for everyone before she darts off again to get more ale for others. "Reaghar, was it? Teelie sent word that she had to go off island for some work, but she'd be looking for a repeat performance when she got back, and that I was to pay you well enough you couldn't cheapskate her next time and make her pay for your date." The graying man says, and laughs. "You pay her way next time, or I'll feed your guts to a dragonling." He admonishes quite seriously.
"Anyway, what are you three looking for? You looking for a permanent gig? Or you looking for a new clan? The former is doable, the latter doable but a lot harder." Manta asks, studying the trio over a glass of ale.
"He wants to buy me a bottle of banana liquor!" A female voice says as 130 lbs of dark skinned bat-winged humavian drops into Connor's lap unexpectedly. The female pirate grins fiercely as she drapes an arm around Connor's neck and nuzzles up against him.
A lithe red-headded humavian that's about 3 inches taller than Alister sits on the edge of the table next to him, facing him. She has green eyes and green butterfly wings, and wears a patch over one eye. She also has a double bracer of throwing knives on a bandolier. "I prefer rum, you like rum honey?" She asks, her voice cutting through the noise easily.
Manta laughs. "Seems you boys are the latest to be popular for spilling blood. That's Mina..." He nods at the dark skinned humavian, then at the red-head. "...and Tanisa."
"Certainly. Now that there's a bit more clink in my pocket, I can afford it" Reaghar deflects the veiled threat.
"As for your question, a permanent gig would be nice. I'd like to avoid moving from dive to dive looking for work, if I can. A new clan certainly couldn't hurt, but I wouldn't say that is a priority of mine at this moment. I've the taste for gold, and I wouldn't be sad to handle more dangerous work than those teamsters, if it meant more clink in my pockets."
Fending off the impending migraine, Connor sent back Shutupshutupshutupshutup! I've got to concentrate here and you're not helping!
Giving the female pirate a poker face with a wan smile, Connor added after Reaghar's reply, "I don't owe my old clan anything, the way they threw me out. But I'd like to buy my way into a clan of my choice, which means I need more gold." Connor's free hand came up with ten gold pieces from his belt pouch. "Here." he told the dark-skinned Mina, his face opening up in a real smile. "Buy yourself that liquor. But I'll stick to ale. I don't want to wake up in a cell again, like last time. Not if I'm meant to fight."
Connor didn't doubt for a moment the two humavian floozies were plants. There was no faster way of separating a man from his gold than with a woman and wine, part of his brain reminded him. Or to wake up the next morning with not even a pair of boots left.
Looking at his two friends, Connor wished again for a eavesdropping-free way of communicating with them. Or that Alister would understand metaphors.
"Yes, let's."
Alister looks up at the woman who's seated herself in front of him. "Rum's not my drink of choice, but it certainly hits the spot on occasion ," he answers, leaning back in his chair a bit.
Turning mostly back to Manta, he says, "Those teamster thugs weren't anything special, though. Like fightin' a child, really. Wouldn't mind a bigger challenge than them, for bigger coin, o' course."
Alister smiles up at the redhead. "You go ahead and get the rum you like, and we can share it, eh? It's on me, Ta-ni-sa," he says, accentuating each syllable of her name.
The trio spend a couple of days retrieving the gold from the gold drops that Selvan and Sammark memorized.
This nets the trio 2,600 gp in gold.
If you want to spend any of the gold, let me know what you're spending it on. If you are ready to go try to find the money behind the magic items, let me know what you're going to do first to look into that. If you're at a loss, you can ask the other team for ideas in the discussion area, and you can ask me for hints as well. Remember, your characters understand this world a lot better than you do as players, so I have no issues with OOC discussion in the discussion thread helping work out things that would be 2nd or 3rd thoughts for the PCs.
Also, you don't have to RP out the entire conversations here unless it's involving NPCs. Any time you're working out issues together, feel free to use the discussion thread, that's what it's there for.
McIntyre group, you have the same option of asking for hints/thoughts from the other 3 in the discussion area as well, obviously.
I don't intend this to be a 'guess what the GM is thinking' game. I hate those. :)
On the third day, Sam returns to the Council building looking much more the part of a desperate criminal save for his constant smile. The folded crossbow and leather armor he has donned both give him an extra sense of security and serve to advertise the fact that he is more dangerous than he first appears. He has taken a shine to the pilfered mace as well.
"Mouse! Mouse! Where are you?" He calls with little in the way of concern for his betters going about their business in the building, "C'mon, we've got work to do!"
OK, both plots are pretty much at the point where we'll be going into a fast forward, that's because both plots are at a point where they are going to need to spend several weeks up to a couple of months working their two avenues.
How this is going to work is this :
Everyone will need to post what they want to work on. This can be detailed or general. The more detailed, the more detailed your results will be. The more general, the more general your results will be. You can all use the discussion thread to work out your specifics and generals.
There should be two parts of this. Inidividual goals, and group goals. For example, an individual goal might be to craft something, or track down a book, or start training on a specific skill. A group goal might be to try to track down a specific person, or stake out a specific area over time, and so on.
You can have as many group and personal goals as you want for the fast forward, but you should list them in priority order (if you run out of time, I'll take the first items listed).
This is the first time you've done this in this PBP, so I'll give you an example below :
Squeaker :
Squeaker will do his best to work on the following during this fast forward.
Personal :
1) He'd like to do everything he can to tick off that jerky wasp wing elf.
2) He'd like to do everything he can to help the blonde.
Group :
1) Try to track down and see if they can find someone who's bought magic items.
2) Try to track down how the magic items are getting in if the smuggler's guild isn't doing it.
Connor:
Connor will get to know Alister and Reaghan better, their back history, how Alister worked with Clan McIntyre, that Reaghan has Scribe Tattoo, and keep his cover with Mina and Grey.
Personal:
1.) Go to the first Mintakia drop for 200 gp. Pay for the inn rooms for all three for the several weeks. Pay 1 week ahead of time, just like a poor warehouse guard would.
2 sp (poor) * 3 (people) * 7 (days) = 4.2 gp/week
3 gp (common) * 3 (people) * 7 (days) = 6.3 gp/week
10.5 gp/week for the 3 of us
Do NOT overspend on food, or entertaining Mina; once the first 50 gp is gone, Connor will have to act like the low-paid worker towards her.
2.) Practice Astral Construct at night in his inn room to improve his Craft: Sculpting skill.
3.) Buy a 10 gp book on basic first aid and bandaging battle wounds for the Heal skill.
4.) Buy a 10 gp on geography for Knowledge: Geography. Talk to Mina about the geography of the islands.
5.) Take a few long walks in the Reville section going to and from work, to get Connor's Knowledge: Local skill. If necessary, with Mina on the pretense of a "cheap date". Use Hero (psicrystal) on his necklace for additional Perception checks.
6.) Buy a 10 gp book on jewelry settings and crafting for Connor to get Crafting: Jewelry.
7.) Buy a simple lock (20 gp) to take apart and put back together again at night in the inn room, and then start lockpicking it (buying the lockpicking tools - 30 gp) to pick up the Disable Device skill.
Group:
1.) Connor will keep his eyes and ears open to find out where the magic items are being smuggled from, and how they are getting to the main island. It's more important to discover the trail than just the end sellers.
2.) Keep psionic focus up at all times while walking inside the Reville area, just in case he can find magic items that way.
3.) See if Mina and Tanisa really are our "keepers", reporting on us for Grey, or not. (Sense Motive skill?)
Personal:
1.) Keep their new bosses happy, working his shift, not causing problems. Leaving most of the detective work to Connor. Since Reaghar is likely being the most closely scrutinized by virtue of his association with Teelie, so best that he doesn't act suspicious at all. Keeping bosses happy will include spending money on another "date" . If she doesn't drain him too dry financially, he will offer to do a free tattoo for her (psionic or otherwise, psionic one would cost him 12.5gp to scribe, a non-psionic one with nice colored inks and large size would be 10gp for him to scribe i believe).
2.) pick up 100gp from the drop, pay Connor his share for the room and board.
3.) Make some spare money by scribing tattoos for locals. He will give members of the gang a small discount (say, charging them 20gp for a 25gp psionic tattoo, or 15gp for a 20gp masterwork tattoo). I am gonna need extra money to offset the costs of associating with Teelie, after all.
Tattoo costs (These are 3rd party rules for mundane tattoo cost, so let me know if you want to do different costs depending on demand, ink availability, etc. PF didn't have rules for mundane tattoos, i think 3.5 used to)
4.) look into books that he can learn other psionic powers from.
Group:
1.) get to know the other two and get a good feel for their patterns, so he can fight better alongside them.
2.) work on advancing their position within the gang to get better, more lucrative jobs. i figure Connor can scan all he wants, and I can focus on getting us farther along in the crew so he can get new things to scan.
1. Do something with 1,300gp. I haven't decided yet. Masterwork weapons are definitely on the list.
2. Attempt to know alyss better.
3. Be amused and patronizing towards the young squeaker. It's hard to find an insult a 124 year old man hasn't heard once. Oh and keep him honest.
4. Stick to the plan and keep my head low adn eyes open. Selvan will approach this carefully and methodically making sure to carefully gather intelligence on each potential threat and target.
- as she has nothing more to go on at the moment Alys will stick to the planand keep an eye and an ear out
- also try to find out more about Selvan, Sammark and Squeaker, so she can figure out how far they can be trusted, and what their strengths and skill sets are.
Personal:
1) Keep the bosses happy doing what he signed up for, bashing heads when they need bashing, and generally being exactly what he appears to be.
2) Keep Tanisa happy, at least trying to stick to the remainders of his week's pay, but not afraid to go a little bit over. I figure that Connor'll probably end up talking to at least Alister about the possibility of them being plants, and as long as he doesn't do anything too stupid, it doesn't hurt too much to feed and water a plant. Other than that, just general meathead stuff, showing off for the pretty lady, etc.
Group:
1) Keep Psionic Focus up, scanning occasionally, but not for too long at any one time due to headaches.
2) Learn about his companions, how they fight, what sort of abilities they have. His fighting style is pretty easy to figure out, but combat using actual psionic ability is a little bit less predictable.
Find a good nickname for Alys
Zap Selvan with energy splash the next time he starts pushing buttons
Also the next two meals he eats will be mysteriously the wrong temperature.
Try to procure a magic item and trace it back to the supplier if possible.
Have Squeaker (if Selvan hasn't run him off) dig up some dirt on the local smuggler rings outside the guild. Names and affiliations would be the most useful. Particularly anyone not popular with the guilds.
Gonna go ahead and spend the 150 to retroactively make Sammark's new armor masterwork
Over the next month, the McIntyre trio continue working for Reville. Shortly after the warehouse fight, approximately a week later, they are assigned a fourth person by Clan Reville, as Clan Reville prefers to have four man groups. The new person is a late adolescent elfvavian named Elrohir. Like Reaghar, Elrohir has mutations, his eyes and hair especially. So Gray (who is now the person the foursome report to) put him with Reaghar, as the two he thought would have something in common. The boy seems inexperienced, but willing to work.
Connor and Alister keep their heads down and eyes open, but don't come across any magic items. They do find several things that are being smuggled in illegally, but it's mostly avoiding taxes on surface alcohol or smuggling shoddy obsolete muzzle loading pistols and rifles to the surface. After carefully poking around with Reville, the trio discover that the clan might be willing to smuggle obsolete weapons against council edict, but they aren't smuggling magic items.
Reaghar, on the other hand, does manage to notice a surface dweller, a gnome who's a specialist in brewing who runs a small brewery that delivers ale to the tavern. He had a small thing around his neck that, on the one occasion he took it out of his shirt gave Reaghar a mild headache when he psionically detected it.
It took the trio some time off the clock to track him down, but they finally found him buying something from a very large and buff looking half-orc in the Southern Quadrant. The half-orc, once they followed him a bit, seems to be a seller of magic items. They've seen him sell to a dozen or so surface dwellers, and even a couple of Atalantians. Unfortunately for the Trio, on their last foray following him, Elrohir caught them at it. He had followed them due to being suspicious of them, thinking they were doing something behind Reville's back.
We open with the trio in an alley, having just watched the half-orc (A guy named Kol) sell a magical stick of some type to a surface dweller dwarf. And with Elohir having just accidently revealed his presence by accidently knocking something off the roof he was watching from. All four staring each other in the eyes, the trio on the ground in the alley and Elrohir on the nearby roof.
You had trouble finding anyone to help you after you ran away, but finally you ended up being accepted by Clan Reville. They do some things that don't exactly sit well with you, like smuggling firearms to the surface, but they at least don't give you grief over how you look. The trio had been treating you good, not apparently upset over your looks (given Reaghar's looks, that's not surprising), but they were acting suspicious to you, and you followed them in case they were doing something against Reville. You're still not sure what they were doing, but they've just found you following them
Mina ends up being a part-time partner. Rather enthusiastic, but you quickly figure out that she's got a dozen stringers she keeps around, all 'pretty boys' or former high ranking clans men that ended up working for Reville. You do find out she's actually ranked in Reville, the daughter of a major pirate captain, and thus why she's so well trained and equipped. She's not exactly a heart of gold, but she's not exactly a trained assassin either. Your best after a month of dating her off and on is that she's intentionally not making any strong connections with anyone and would kill you if she thought you were betraying Reville, but otherwise is mostly just cruising and trying to avoid being promoted. SHe's actually relatively lazy, palming a lot of her assigned work off on her pretty boys.
For your personal goals, you are able to get the lock you wanted, as well as the books. Mina also does have a ton of knowledge about the islands, and surprisingly, the surface world. She's not afraid of magic, having been to the surface enough as a child to get used to it, and admits to even having had some spells cast on her when she was a younger girl on the surface. Mostly healing. She prefers psionics though, and thinks idiots who bring magic up to the island deserve to get blown up.
Over the course of the month, you make another 35 gp after paying for dates with Mina.
You do pretty well with Reville, honestly your character is probably wishing he'd fallen in with them rather than Mintakia security originally. But at least he's getting to bust heads and have some fun off the clock.
Tanisa's not as quick to bed you as Mina seems to be, as it's 3 weeks before she invites Alister back to her room. She actually lives on a ship, one that crashed and hasn't been recovered. She explains it was her fathers, so she owns it, she just doesn't have the gold to get it repaired and put back to the air. It's just outside the city limits, so she can let it rest there and not pay taxes on it or lose it to the Council. At least until the city limits move again.
She's a fairly interesting person, and before she sleeps with Alister, tells him she was told to keep an eye on him. She makes sure he knows that the bedroom stuff is not something she's doing because she's been told to watch him. But that she will be watching him. You earn another 48 gp after spending money on Tanisa.
You do a good job of keeping your head down, and even manage to twig onto a magic seller where Connor and Alister failed! You also end up having some fun with Teelie again, although that eats seriously into your profits, she's a high-maintenance type of girl. You also find out she's got a taste for the unusual, and thinks your new fourth (Elrohir) is just the cutest thing in the world at his age, and is hinting around about a 3-some.
From what you can tell, Teelie works as a specialist in identifying rare artifacts, and that's why she is always going off, to go see what someone has found and identify it. That certainly explains the room of musty dusty books in her place she forbids you from entering.
After the four weeks, you've managed to scrape up an additional 4 gold pieces after dating Teelie.
Guild update coming shortly.