Awgin glares at Laya for a minute before cracking some. "It seems to me that Captain Percival chose each of us for our talents. Of us, only Heward has any experiance as Watch. Auriel seems to be the anti-Watch, but that means that she ought to be able to get places and information not open to Heward. As far as I can tell, I'm here for those times that running is not an option. That is all you need to know about me. That and I'll not turn on you."
Heward nods as the others speak. This still might go ok. We might be able to keep her on the team. He thinks about whether or not speaking again will help or hurt the cause before venturing to add, "Minick, what's the best thing you've done on the team? "
Auriel turns pale at the proffered pastry but slides somewhat reluctantly into an empty chair. "Got everyone out of Millis's place before the fight went down, guests and kitchen staff," she answers immediately but warily. "No one got hurt. Everyone else was all about the plan to catch Mikobar; nobody was thinking about the bystanders."
"We weren't?" For a moment, Laya looks positively mystified. Then her eyes brighten as if she's reached a conclusion. "No, I'd say we definitely were thinking about the bystanders, Auriel. But we were...what's that saying?...caught between a rock and a hard place. Yes, that's it. Stafford refused to cancel his party and evacuate the guests. He refused to allow us to remove the enjoiner so that we could lure Mikobar to a different location, one where innocents wouldn't be at risk. So we did what we could. We kept the item on us to make certain he came after us and not the bystanders. And I have to say, that part of the plan actually worked quite well, even if the rest didn't. For the most part, Mikobar ignored the bystanders and only went after those who directly attacked him."
"'Stafford wouldn't let you,'" she scoffs. "He 'let' me, because I went ahead and did it whether he liked it or not. By the time Mikobar got to the staircase, we were the only ones left in the house. Or do you think he's above grabbing someone and using them as a hostage? He did it with Taverson. What if his snake had gotten ahold of Millis' daughter, or one of the councillors, and threatened to crush them if you didn't give him the enjoiner?" She leans back in her chair. "But fine; if you think that was nothing, then I haven't done anything on this team and you're better off giving that badge to someone else anyway."
"I didn't say that you did nothing Auriel. Clearly you did. I disagreed with your statement that the rest of us did nothing."
"Easy, Laya. I didn't ask the question to open any sort of argument. I thought Minick would bring up keeping the shop from falling on Lowcleft, but her answer makes the same point. In both cases Minick was looking out for bystanders. She was protecting citizens in her own way. In both cases she was looking at the situation from a different, but valuable point of view. That's why I think she should stay. Without her either one of those situations could have ended with innocents hurt or killed."
He shifts his gaze back to Auriel. "So Minick, where else are you going to find a job where you can do so much good and get paid a decent living to do it? And is it worth putting up with us?" He grins, "Or would you rather unleash us on the streets without your perspective?"
"How'zabout this, Wallas?" she asks deliberately, leaning forward across the table. "You treat me like your spunky underling, I walk. Pretty sure I can help little old ladies across the street anywhere in town without a badge that means you get to give me orders."
[b]"Magnimar's coin; Magnimar's rules. I'll treat you same as I would any member of the team. I'll only give you orders I feel are in the interest of the city, its citizens, and your safety."
"If you walk, I hope you help all the old ladies you can, but if you stay, you can save lives, protect the weak, and help honest men keep what's theirs."
She stifles a laugh. "Honest men like Stafford Millis and Rav Kinman? My heart bleeds for their loss. I said before: I don't take orders. From anyone. If you want to frame your ideas in the form of suggestions, I'll be happy to consider those I feel are in the interest of the city, its citizens, and my safety. In whatever order I choose." She snorts in derision. "Gods, Percival himself didn't order me to come here."
Auriel's stomach lurches as she flinches away from the muffin. "That would be the halfling," she tells Calatin firmly. "We're both girls, but I'm taller." What would she do working for the mage? Long, boring days in libraries, carrying stacks of books and fetching snacks, come unenticingly to mind.
She stifles a laugh. "Honest men like Stafford Millis and Rav Kinman? My heart bleeds for their loss. I said before: I don't take orders. From anyone. If you want to frame your ideas in the form of suggestions, I'll be happy to consider those I feel are in the interest of the city, its citizens, and my safety. In whatever order I choose." She snorts in derision. "Gods, Percival himself didn't order me to come here."
"I don't like Millis or Kinman any better than you do. I probably wouldn't like your Lowcleft friends either. But regardless of who they are or whether I like them, they all deserve the protection of the law. And if Percival didn't order you down here, how'd you get here? Why were you ever on the team at all?"
She shrugs. "He suggested you might need my help. And that if I helped out the Watch, he might be willing to look the other way about ... other things. If he'd ordered me to do it, I'd have told him where he could stick his orders and let him throw me in jail if he thought he was man enough to hold me."
She shrugs. "He suggested you might need my help. And that if I helped out the Watch, he might be willing to look the other way about ... other things. If he'd ordered me to do it, I'd have told him where he could stick his orders and let him throw me in jail if he thought he was man enough to hold me."
"Cally's t$@!, Minick! The captain might make a suggestion, but --" It's too much. She doesn't even realize the captain's suggestion was as good as an order. And backed with the same implications as Heward's own order. It's like arguing with a seventeen year old.
"OK. Captain Percival wants you on the team. Then he put me in charge. How do we make this work?"
She shrugs. "Near as I can tell, you got a promotion, so you're in charge of anyone in the Watch that has a lower rank in you. I don't have a rank in the Watch at all. Don't think anyone else here does, either." She looks around the table. "So, congratulations: you now get to answer to Captain Boring-Shoes for the success or failure of a bunch of people who have never sworn to abide by the hierarchy of the Watch in the first place. Or do you think being a sergeant qualifies you to walk out into the streets and order anyone you find there to report for mandatory daily training?"
Why didn't her parents strangle her in the cradle? Heward had come prepared for a little backtalk. No one moved up the ladder without some flack from his old peers until he had proved himself, but this was almost beyond that, nearly altogether beyond belief. And it was certainly wearing at his patience. He decided to change tacks.
Heward looked around at the other team members. "Minick seems to think she's not working for the Watch. Do any of you think you're not working for the Watch?"
"Wallas seems to think that his shiny new title gives him authority over people who have never taken an oath to uphold said authority," she counters. "And I swear to Abadar himself, if you don't stop calling me 'Minick' like I'm an ant in your damned anthill ...! That's a new and endearing quirk since the fumes from your newly-acquired power went to your head."
Heward ignores Auriel's outburst. He's waiting for the others to chime in.
"Hey there, Law-man, I did not wake up just to hear you fuss at Auriel. If there's nothing else, I'm out of here."
"So am I." Auriel walks out, leaving her badge on the table, and heads up the stairs to grab her bag. When she comes back down, she hands the crossbow back to Mrs. Brigglespan. "Thanks, but ... I'm not going to need this anymore," she says a bit shyly.
Laya frowns as Auriel walks out. "A shame," she says after the door has closed behind the bard. "But probably for the best. It really wasn't looking like we were going to find common ground." She looks to Heward. "I don't envy you having to tell Captain Percival that she's left."
Awgin catches up with Auriel. "I hope we're still ok. I don't know many people in this city and hope we can hang out again sometime."
after that, he goes to his room to get some more rest.
Heward watches the meeting dissolve. "All right, let's break this up." It's not permission to leave as much as an attempt to create an illusion of authority. He watches Auriel and Awgin's backs as they go through the door.
***
To Laya (and Calatin?) he replies, "I don't envy me either. Captain Percival will not be pleased, I think." He turns to squarely face the halfling Pharasmin. "She seemed to really care about regular people. Dozens could have been hurt or killed in Lowcleft or at Stafford's, but she made sure they were safe. That's part of what we do. Why wouldn't she get on board? Did I screw up by pushing the self-defense training?"
Garidan, who had remained silent all along, pipes up. "Do not blame yourself. Even among the clans, there are those who cannot work for the good of the clan, and drift away. The self-defense training is good and necessary. All should join in. It is not for improving our own fighting prowess, but its purpose is so that we, as a group, may learn each others' strengths and weaknesses, how to complement each other, how to support each other, and how to place ourselves so as best to use each others' talents. That is even more important than training everybody in combat. Clearly, this job is going to put us into conflicts with the foes the regular Watchmen are not equipped to face, foes who do know each others' strengths. It would be foolish for us to go into such situations not knowing each other."
"For example, I observed that Laya has an ability to create a wave of healing power, but its range is limited. Why does it not make sense for us to practice, as a group, being able to stay within, or return to that radius when we need to. Is it really fair to other team members, the one's who do fight at the front and may need that healing, for you to not show up and allow us the chance to practice getting close enough, so that we may learn for how far exactly we can be and still benefit?"
"Just as an example. I am new to this group, and don't wish to cause hard feelings, but it seems to me that we have a unique opportunity to create a group that works together flawlessly for the greater good. Why would we not want to take advantage of that?"
Awgin catches up with Auriel. "I hope we're still ok. I don't know many people in this city and hope we can hang out again sometime."
She gives him a noncommittal half-smile. "Bye, Shy Guy. Congratulations on your promotion from meaningless peon to right-hand lackey. When they fit you for your boots, try to get some with tooled leather instead of the standard-issue dull-brown foot-boxes." With a wave, she walks out the door.
...
Garidan, who had remained silent all along, pipes up. "... The self-defense training is ... so that we, as a group, may learn each others' strengths and weaknesses, how to complement each other, how to support each other, and how to place ourselves so as best to use each others' talents. That is even more important than training everybody in combat. ....""... Laya has an ability to create a wave of healing power, ..."
"Just as an example. I am new to this group, and don't wish to cause hard feelings, but it seems to me that we have a unique opportunity to create a group that works together flawlessly for the greater good. Why would we not want to take advantage of that?"
Heward looks carefully at Garidan. "That's more thought than I'd put into it, but you're right. We can work out tactics that will cover our weaknesses and trade on our strengths as individuals in order to make the whole team more effective."
"Very well put, Calatin," Laya says. She snatches another muffin off the table before Calatin can eat them all. Then she turns to Heward.
"Garidan makes a good point about the training. It is about working together and that is what it should focus on, rather than training people like myself or Calatin to use a sword. If it focuses on cooperation and party unity, I'll be happy to attend. Although someone may have to come fetch me and remind me each time as I have a terrible memory for these things," she adds hastily.
Turning to Garidan, she says, "However, my healing wave as you call it will heal our enemies just as surely as it will heal us. If this group expects to face our enemies head-on, then huddling together for channelled energy will not be effective. It must be done at a distance. However, I suppose that is something that can wait until these training sessions get underway."
I would assume that Heward, despite not wanting to, will feel duty-bound to report right away to Captain Percival that Auriel has left the group. Despite Heward's fears, though, there is no recrimination, nor blame. If anything, Percival takes the blame onto himself. "I thought she might bolt, but at the same time, that girl has tons of promise, and had hoped the opportunity might do her some good. As it is, you'll probably be seeing her again, though maybe not on the proper side of the law. It will take me some time to find a replacement to fill hers and Erodel's particular void. I'll try to do better to find somebody that will actually stick it out with you. Unfortunately, you do need somebody of that mindset in the group, we just have to find one that's grown up a little more is all."
The next few days pass by. Garidan, I assume (and I'm still holding out hope that ProfPotts will be back soon) sets to work in the alchemy lab crafting the potions he wanted. Heward, I assume, tries to engage the remaining five in team-building exercises. Everybody participate this time?
By late afternoon on the 14th of Rova, Captain Percival still hasn't found you a replacement Erodel/Auriel, when Mrs. Brigglespan comes to inform as many of you as she can find that the Captain is waiting for you in your briefing room with a new case.
Captain Percival, sitting calmly in a chair at the conference/dinner table with a cup of watered wine at his elbow, waits patiently as everybody files in to take their seats. Timmins stands behind and to his left, holding a small armload of scrolls.
"Good afternoon, folks," he starts once everybody is seated. "I have a new case for you, and it may be a sensitive one right from the get go. A young wizard, a, ummm..." he pauses to reference a scroll that Timmins has placed in his hand three seconds earlier, "Zhaul Datedy, for some unknown reason, murdered five seemingly-random pedestrians with fire magic, and may have killed more if he hadn't been stopped and killed himself."
Percival pauses for a drink of wine, and continues. "There's a big problem, however, that we have to get through right away. This all went down just inside the Princess of the Market's 'jurisdiction'. The Bazaar Security Force has laid claim to the bodies and is balking our efforts to assert Magnimar City watch authority, as usual."
"Your first task is to secure that crime scene and keep the Bazaar cops out of it, then determine if there's actually anything to investigate. Questions?"
"Captain. Timmins." Heward nods respectfully as he takes his seat. He listens attentively.
*** Afterward ***
Know(local)
"Crystal clear, sir. The Princess guards her turf jealously. Will we have backup?"
"There are already Watchmen on the scene, but they have no negotiation background. Tread lightly with the Bazaar cops. They don't have legal authority, but they might as well. You are not authorized to use force to secure the scene, unless, of course, they initiate."
Awgin spends the next few days finishing the rooftop garden. He'll take time to 'patrol' Underbridge (D) and Lowcleft (E) and will participate in combat practice.
========================================================================
Awgin is far more attentive at Captain Percival's meeting than at any of Heward's. "I been told I can be very persuasive when I want to be." Awgin says menacingly. "Maybe I should speak to them. Convince them that it's in their best interest to cooperate."
"I'm afraid I'm not familiar with this place," Laya admits. "Who is this Princess you refer to, and who are these bazaar cops?"
"The 'Princess', as she calls herself, is little more than an organized crime boss based in the Bazaar of Sails, though as crime bosses go, she's not the worst in the city. Her goons extract protection money from the local businesses, but unlike other mobs, the protection money is actually for protection from outside threats. Most of these mobs ask for protection money to protect you from themselves, but the Bazaar Security Force actually does protect from outside threats to their 'customers' as well. Unfortunately, she guards her turf jealously, especially from the Watch. After all, the Watch deals with brigands, footpads and theives for free."
"We'd best hurry, if we're going to preserve the scene. Everyone grab your gear and meet out front. We'll talk tactics on the way. Mrs Brigglespan, summon the carriage to the front door please. Is there anything else , Captain?"
"Captain, maybe we should send Laya and Calatin to talk to people that knew this guy. The market could get violent and they don't really do that."
Percival shakes his head at Awgin, and the rest by extension. "What is it with this team that can't understand that you are stronger when you're together, and even when involved in things that you 'don't really do', you support each other and keep each other safe. I promise you, the bad guys you'll be facing don't leave their spell casters at home because they 'don't really do that' stuff, and Calatin and Laya are valuable members of your team, there to help counteract such individuals. Start figuring out how to work together!"
Sense Motive:
"Besides, Laya might be our best bet for talking them down. Let's go. We'll talk tactics in the coach. "