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Titus is now in fur, and wears a new hide armor of good quality. At his side, a new wand, with a red pentacle on it.
I'm good at negociating with people, but I'm not good at lies. We could pass for travelers wanting to find a friend who stays in Whitethrone. It's not far from the truth.
Proposes Titus
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"okay, we talk our way in, but it's also not a lie that I want to make some business contacts either. We also have this heavy crate. I don't want them searching it."
-Posted with Wayfinder
There are occasional merchant caravans passing by, so you can see what dressing as merchants should look like.
Are you ready to approach?
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Actually, Kayanor checks out the caravans going in. While they don't *seem* that much different, the elf knows enough that he needs to act much more the part. "I'd be willing to wager bribing one of them to let us count as a caravan guard is cheaper than doing it ourselves. I don't have much, but I'm happy to help." Kayanor looks a little embarassed before adding, "I'm not much of a talker yet, but I think it's a matter of study over willingness. I've studied archery most of my life. Targets that far don't talk."
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"That's a good suggestion," is Thessaly's reaction to Kayanor's idea. She is very much not a paladin. "Sides, it ain't exactly a bribe so much as it is banding together in a caravan for protection... Irrisen's full of monsters, isn't it," she adds drily.
"I have some ready coin. Let's see if we can't travel through the gate with somebody. Less likely to have our goods taken."
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Titus undone his armor and shield and gives them to his comrades. Under his fur, he wears his courtier's outfit with some jewelery.
He put in a cage his friend Ydresus.
Stay here, and don't SSshh me !
Then turns to his comrades.
Now, I'm more a merchant than an adventurer. You can be my guards as I must deliver this box to a client in town. Which is very true.
Let's go.
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"Sounds fine. I can act as a caravan guard", agrees Darathys to Titus with a nod, "You surely look more like a merchant than an adventurer". Darathys burst into a laughter. "Tell me, Titus, why did you join the Pathfinders? You come from Cheliax, as far as you have told us...So why the Pathfinders? I heard that the government there has closed the only existing lodge...What was its name? Ehm...Oh, yes. Delvehaven"
You approach the first caravan of a decent size that you see, and Titus finds the merchant captain, Grint Vasseler, who eyes him with suspicion and indifference. However, after a handful of coins (let's say 2 gold each), and some rather frank discussion of the situation, the merchant captain agrees to help you out.
"These Iron Guards are a tough group, and have never been particularly friendly, so yah... I'll get you in. Just act the part, stick your chest over there in my wagon, and follow my lead."
When you get to the gate, one guard steps up and says "OK, Vasseler, you know the drill... "
The Iron Guards ask questions regarding his nation of origin, the nature of their merchant business in Whitethrone, how long they intend to stay, and then requires them to report to the Iron Barracks to receive a license to operate as a merchant in the city. The whole time, Vasseler keeps nodding, bored, and eventually you all pass through the gate.
After a few blocks, he comes back to you. "OK, folks. Don't get caught sneaking around the city, and if you do, you don't know me, right?"
You are in, and now you need to find the brewery.
You will need to find your path from the gate on the east (right) side, where you entered, and make your way to the brewery.
For each block, you each need to make a Stealth check, so let's just have everyone make 10 checks, and then I will compile the results. I will assume you are taking a relatively straight route, unless someone wants to offer a different plan.
Sneaking from area to area, you try hard to blend into the city. You easily avoid the Howlings, and eventually find your destination.
A large, dilapidated building sits crammed between equally dilapidated warehouses and flophouses. Its doors are chained shut, its windows are filled with broken glass and boarded from the inside, and its facade is faded, crumbling, and encrusted with icicles. Faded, hard-to-read letters are painted 10 feet tall across the top of the ruined structure—they read: Auntie Marny’s Bitter Brew.
Darathys breaks open the chains (or at least the handle that the chains were attached to...)
A mass of broken tables, chairs, and barstools clutter the center of this dusty room, and a crumbling bar still stands in front of a broken mirror on the north wall. Three small alcoves in the southwest corner once served as semiprivate bar booths but now host only rubble. The door to a storage room in the northwest corner hangs loose on its hinges, the smell of rotting refuse wafting from within. Two sets of double doors lead to the street to the south (you are entering these) and farther into the building to the north.
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Noticing Titus looking, Thesaly stares around as well. "What're we looking for?"
The half-Ulfen woman has been uncharacteristically silent and sullen since they entered the city. Irriseni and Ulfen have bad blood between them; she figures the best she can do is keep her mouth shut and not launch herself at a jadwiga in the street or something.
Titus does not notice anything specific, but he also doesn't notice a lack of footprints. It does not seem that this building has been completely forgotten and abandoned.
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Titus looks incredulously at Darathys 9 Hells ! What I have done to this man for this treatment ?!
But before he could answer the man moved in. At least is not a fool
As you have seen on our precedent mission, no, I'm not brave. But it's not my role to be.
He follows Darathys in the room, taking his shield as his only protection, his armor still stored in his backpack.
There are doors to the north (which is to the left on the map), but otherwise you have not seen anything more of interest in the taproom where you are now.
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Darathys looks around nervously. Seeing that all of his companions are apparently waiting for him to open the door to the north, he smirks. "I can't understand why you're putting so much trust in my talent as a door opener. I could easily stumble across a trap or an ambush as anyone else...", he says with a sarcastic laugh. Then, he moves to open the northern door, turning to his companions before he does, "Ok, ok, I'll do that. But next time it's Thessaly's turn!".
Just when he decides to open the door, though, Dulcinea bursts into the room beyond the door. Darathys smiles approvingly "Now, that's boldness!" he calls out as he quickly reaches his fellow Pathfinder.
The remnants of a once-working brewery are neatly organized around this large, warehouse-like room. Huge metal colanders, giant steel pots, enormous fermenting vessels, and a massive steam boiler stand covered in cobwebs and dust, their edges coated in rust and their support joints and screws popping and bending under years of neglect. At the north end of the room, the floor slopes down to large roller-doors that are chained and boarded shut and the southeast corner of the room holds three tables covered in empty bottles, faded labels, and broken glass. High above the room, thick oaken rafters span east to west and support enormous wooden arches that reach up thirty feet above the floor to the ceiling, the roof pock-marked with holes and bird’s nests.
As you enter, you here a low growl as you see three dogs crawling out from under various pieces of brewery equipment, teeth bared and ready to attack.
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"I hate to put down an animal, but something tells me a dog treat isn't going to do it."
-Posted with Wayfinder
Dulcinea easily puts down one dog with little bloodshed, skewering it right through its brain.
The other two charge, red at Dulcinea and blue at Darathys. Both, however, clamp down on nothing but air. Perhaps their bark is worse than their bite.