MiniGM's Council of Thieves

Game Master Vuvu

Moments later, a pattering (stampede of wildbeasts?/barbarian orcs assaulting the city?/Westcrowne Council rioting?) of footsteps enters the room. Her host xxx, Halfling atheist xxx, and MsTarvi quietly approached with tender words and gentle ministrations. Hostxxx runs back down for tea, crackers and spot of stew. Slowly her story unfolds of the last couple of day, as well as guilt for not remaining in the thick of things doing her part whilst she lain recovering.

After the second day awake and a covert selfishly cast CureLightWounds spell to hasten her healing. She officially returns to the land of the living physically healed yet haunted by her experience. Hippa returns to her daily job at the apothecary, outreaching to the community as an experienced healer willing to accept bartered nontraditional forms of payment. Her fame increased her standing and business opportunities.

Her debt owners seeing the latest spurt of productivity, increased social life and the subsequent loss of rent see the growth not as a means of celebration to final payoff but as a loss of control. They up the intimidation and tighten their grip fiscally to bring her back under their thumb. One shaken Hippa and roughly crudely searched apartment for immediate payment convinces her that an unscheduled move sooner rather than later would be beneficial to her health as well as a much lower profile.

”Bossman said you holding out on him. He aint a charity but he been patient like seeing as you a widow. Well, now whats this? The human Hellnight reject holds up a beautiful haute fashionable gnome sized dress which he promptly gropes and leers at her. ”Oi, clearly not mourning anymore. Find yourself a sugar daddy? Bossman be mighty encouraged to hear about this. Ogg, Hold her steady; we’ll be making this worth our effort.” The other Human Reject, Ogg already holding one shoulder, shifts his grip to around her neck with the other enmeshed in her hair. No, she wasn’t going anywhere. The henchmen proceed to scatter clothes, cats and memories looking for anything and everything of value, with Hippa only able to quietly tear up at the loss. ”Nice making your acquaintance. Please be prompt with future payments, eh? All her nicer effects and valuables were stuffed into a burlap bag, Hippa shoved violently into her upturned bed, as the hired thugs departed cackling with the ease of the shakedown. Drying her tears, the something grew a little bit deeper within her outlook, not the flames of righteous anger but one of darker retribution.
She throws herself into the work of reclaiming the former glory of the now unoccupied buildings during her free time. Moving from the hole in the wall living quarters to the much larger basement space to facilitate this as well as frugally no longer paying rent freed up some coinage to rebuild her life out of sight. She kept her clientele of animal care, midnight midwifery and stepping away from the apothecary to alchemical niche, hopefully more lucrative as well as more discrete clientele.

Hermiting herself in the basement and limiting her daytime contact to primarily WestCrowne Torches, Hippa rebuilds her life. Supportive of the Torches, pushing out to cover after hours need of the poor and disenfranchised, who were more than understanding of her desire to be discrete as well as flexible on payment methods, often favors. She actually built up an alchemical lab from Amaya’s imperfect efforts but perfectly serviceable glassware, granted it was not a matching set of high end crystal beakers and decanters but it would do. And Ermolos’s blacksmithing was ever so perfect for specific custom needed sizing for her size. Sweet Man and such a gentle giant. She even reached out to Vitti, to build her an appropriate sized work space for her future alchemical endeavors. That green haired man is quite the artesian. Plus much of her customers had access to raw materials without the need to show her face at the market simply because they did the undesirable jobs. Bat guano? Fiosa heard along the Westcrown Gossip network that a Halfling servant shoveled out an attic last week. Her self-imposed isolation, ironically, increased her circle of friends and networking.

Finally starting to settle in the former temple and upstairs tavern taking shape, she eyeballs the boarded up spaces or entrances/exits. There had to be a reason and she was the one to solve it. At her own pace, she removed a couple of boards, carved a hole and peeked in for additional skeletal wolves. Dropping in light-spelled pebbles helped illuminate the hidden space, a couple good gnomish warcries to attract attention and SirBarksalot as an alert sidekick should wake the dead. If nothing visible and no response, a braver gnome removed additional boards and commenced the search beyond. If there was a monstrous response, well, she could whittle away at the captive hostile or enlist help from the other torchbearers or children of Westcrowne as needed. She wonders if she could perhaps nurture a couple of shrieking mushrooms here, you know, just in case… Back to the sewers? She would like to get a bit more familiar with these. Was there perchance an access point here?

Which gave her incentive to seek out the Sage for a little more information regarding the shadowspawn garms or whatever they were called. Perhaps a half dozen torch bearing torchbearers with some self-crafted sunrods could do a little hunting on their own, one darkened alley at a time. At the very least, they could practice on rodent extermination. She wondered if there could be a connection there…

So much to do…

Her debt owners seeing the latest spurt of productivity, increased social life and the subsequent loss of rent see the growth not as a means of celebration to final payoff but as a loss of control. They up the intimidation and tighten their grip fiscally to bring her back under their thumb. One shaken Hippa and roughly crudely searched apartment for immediate payment convinces her that an unscheduled move sooner rather than later would be beneficial to her health as well as a much lower profile.
”Bossman said you holding out on him. He aint a charity but he been patient like seeing as you a widow. Well, now whats this? The human Hellnight reject holds up a beautiful haute fashionable gnome sized dress which he promptly gropes and leers at her. ”Oi, clearly not mourning anymore. Find yourself a sugar daddy? Bossman be mighty encouraged to hear about this. Ogg, Hold her steady; we’ll be making this worth our effort.” The other Human Reject, Ogg already holding one shoulder, shifts his grip to around her neck with the other enmeshed in her hair. No, she wasn’t going anywhere. The henchmen proceed to scatter clothes, cats and memories looking for anything and everything of value, with Hippa only able to quietly tear up at the loss. ”Nice making your acquaintance. Please be prompt with future payments, eh? All her nicer effects and valuables were stuffed into a burlap bag, Hippa shoved violently into her upturned bed, as the hired thugs departed cackling with the ease of the shakedown. Drying her tears, the something grew a little bit deeper within her outlook, not the flames of righteous anger but one of darker retribution.
She throws herself into the work of reclaiming the former glory of the now unoccupied buildings during her free time. Moving from the hole in the wall living quarters to the much larger basement space to facilitate this as well as frugally no longer paying rent freed up some coinage to rebuild her life out of sight. She kept her clientele of animal care, midnight midwifery and stepping away from the apothecary to alchemical niche, hopefully more lucrative as well as more discrete clientele.
Hermiting herself in the basement and limiting her daytime contact to primarily WestCrowne Torches, Hippa rebuilds her life. Supportive of the Torches, pushing out to cover after hours need of the poor and disenfranchised, who were more than understanding of her desire to be discrete as well as flexible on payment methods, often favors. She actually built up an alchemical lab from Amaya’s imperfect efforts but perfectly serviceable glassware, granted it was not a matching set of high end crystal beakers and decanters but it would do. And Ermolos’s blacksmithing was ever so perfect for specific custom needed sizing for her size. Sweet Man and such a gentle giant. She even reached out to Vitti, to build her an appropriately-sized work space for her future alchemical endeavors. That green haired man is quite the artesian. Plus much of her customers had access to raw materials without the need to show her face at the market simply because they did the undesirable jobs. Bat guano? Fiosa heard along the Westcrown Gossip network that a Halfling servant shoveled out an attic last week. Her self-imposed isolation, ironically, increased her circle of friends and networking.
Finally starting to settle in the former temple and upstairs tavern taking shape, she eyeballs the boarded up spaces or entrances/exits. There had to be a reason and she was the one to solve it. At her own pace, she removed a couple of boards, carved a hole and peeked in for additional skeletal wolves. Dropping in light-spelled pebbles helped illuminate the hidden space, a couple good gnomish warcries to attract attention and SirBarksalot as an alert sidekick should wake the dead. If nothing visible and no response, a braver gnome removed additional boards and commenced the search beyond. If there was a monstrous response, well, she could whittle away at the captive hostile or enlist help from the other torchbearers or children of Westcrowne as needed. She wonders if she could perhaps nurture a couple of shrieking mushrooms here, you know, just in case… Back to the sewers? She would like to get a bit more familiar with these. Was there perchance an access point here?
Which gave her incentive to seek out the Sage for a little more information regarding the shadowspawn garms or whatever they were called. Perhaps a half dozen torch bearing torchbearers with some self-crafted sunrods could do a little hunting on their own, one darkened alley at a time. At the very least, they could practice on rodent extermination. She wondered if there could be a connection there…
Simply out of expectation, her alchemical endeavors were aimed at healing, curing, or negating ill health effects, ie Balms, Medicines and Tonics. The darker projects were hidden amongst the “uncompleted” or “failed” products to be disposed of later. Some were whimsical, like a bit of simple and moderately complex invisible ink for Sclavo to see what he could do and see if she indeed perfected her version of the recipe.
Out of necessity for funds as well as stepping up her game for alchemy which could only take her so far, she focused with mastering “Cure Light Wounds” potions for the Child of Westcrowne. “Cure Moderate Wounds for the Chalkboard candidates (Audi, Brannock, Tram, Exxor and Miro). And these potions took more time than she expected, certainly not a profitable venture as yet, unless one took into account this was money not spent elsewhere. Surprisingly enough, although in hindsight obvious, there was not just one recipe/instruction. She needed guidance and the gods’ avatars preferred their own. Clearly, this opened up other vistas seeing how none were absolute but more like guidelines. What could go wrong? She could only wonder what other potion variations would reveal. Plus Ms Tarvi showed burgeoning knowledge and catlike curiosity for her efforts assisting. She was growing up and needed a non-family adult female confidante. She didn’t expect to be tutoring a child/young adult much less end up as a surrogate Auntie.

So much to do…