"Agreed. It's been a long day. We could all use a good kip."
Draalûsh then spreads out his blanket and bedroll on the floor …
"Night, night!"
… and then just goes to sleep.
Samias places something that will make a noise if the door is opened in the night, and then spreads his bedroll out and sits on it, checking his equipment and cleaning his weapons.
"Be a good idea to have watches." He suggests as he works.
the night passes by uneventfully, in the morning one of the attendants comes to get you *claaang* "wakey wakey sleepyheads, I'm told the boys from the caravan are waiting for you. come on."
Karla stretches, and gets up. She cast a prestidigitation spell, and cleans up. Then gathers her gear. Looking at the others, she says, let's go
She then casts mage armour on herself.
"Morning" Draalûsh responds to the noisy wake up call.
Then quickly packs his gear and gets ready to go.
she leads you all to the common room babbling all the while about the door alarm, she sounds kinda annoyed. all of a sudden a voice pops up "hey there f~&$faces, long time no see." you look over to see Adriala sitting on a couch looking back at you.
"Well. Good morning to you too. I think."
Karla stares for a second.
so, you made it. Good to see.
she looks at Draalush with confusion "aren't you dead? well anyway, I came for my sword."
"Your sword, along with all other weapons in this place are sheathed in the lobby."
Hashik states as he begins combing out his long hair.
"huh" she takes out a coin, flips it, then sets it down on the table. "well then I'll be off. you wouldn't happen to have my tarot deck too would you?" she says while getting up and walking to the front.
"Yeah. All your valuables are up there. It was looking pretty weird carrying you like a dead body through town so we stashed you along the way. I told them you would find your way here."
"That was my twin brother that died", Draalûsh explains to Adriala.
"I got there a few moments too late, it seems."
everyone's looking at the exchange with great interest, including the girl who was dragging you along. Adriala goes up to the counter to get her stuff. you can all be waiting in line if you so choose. all of a sudden some bearded guy in armor comes barging in and yells "hey are you one of the travelers going north?"
Adriala replies immediately "yes I'm going north"
stranger replies gruffly "well hurry the hell up. and tell your friends to hurry up too, else they'll leave us behind"
When she's not looking Samias gives Adriala a very suspicious look. Something about her survival and joining the caravan strikes him as too convenient?
"We're coming", says Draalûsh as he moves smartly.
"This is going to be a long slog, I can tell!"
there are 6 young guys, a woman and the bearded man who was trying to come get you. all in armor. "bout time you - hold on, nobody said anything about a kid coming along" he says looking at Karla.
"She won't be any trouble and there will be a gold for each of us when she reaches our destination. Good spending money in town after a long haul, right?!"
"She will be their responsibility, you won't have to worry about her."
Hashik gestures to his party members.
"Let's just get ourselves underway shall we?"
Hashik urges diplomatically.
"Eh, well if you get caught and thrown out don't come crying to me about it." the lady starts giggling about something and you get a slightly confused look from Adriala when she finds out you're the other travelers. the gruff speaking guy motions to a loaded and prepared cart for you to get on.
Motioning toward Karla, Draalûsh says "She's not a kid. And she is capable of holding her own."
Draalûsh then just gets ready to go with the others.
"Right, let's just get on with it, shall we?"
Hashik hard eyes Draalush and sends him a message
What are you doing?! We are trying to sneak her out. Why blow their belief she is a child?
Karla just looks at them. oh well, sucks being a human kid anyways
never heard of halflings, have you?
She flicks her hair, and hefts her pack.
I'll hold my own. Any giving me grief won't like the results.
She fingers the potion of disguise. She had made efforts to disguise herself, dying her hair, adjusting with prestidigitation, but this was her trump card. But it only would last ten minutes. She would have to pick her moment.
after Karla is done talking, the lady starts laughing, and the bearded guy looks a little embarrased and says "shush it you."
the cart goes off, horses trotting through the streets. the lady is driving kinda recklessly very much in a hurry. you get up to the upper quarter without any hassle. very many other carts are hurrying out as well, just as the madame predicted, and no one is even bothering to search at this point. it takes you 15 minutes to get to the merchant headquarters and everyone is just leaving for the gates now.
there's about 20 heavy wagons with this particular trading company logo on it. your cart is waved over to the end of the line without fanfare, and you start going on a much slower pace towards the city gates. from the looks of things right now you would say about half of the city's journeymen and other assorted land based cargo haulers are trying to get out of Eleder right now.
anything before the inspection begins?
Karla drinks her potion, as surreptitiously as possible, behind a wall or wagon or people if available. Her hair goes dark, she gets about ten years older, and her face changes. At least to the eye they do.
Then she moves with the others for the inspection
Draalûsh will have his potion too before the inspection.
Trying to look the part of a weather-beaten white-haired trader.
Karla's image settles on an older female halfling, with black hair (with a few streaks of gray), as opposed to her usual bright red, and a long scar across her left cheek. Her features are more rounded, and eye colour shifts from green to brown. Her cloths change to more weathered, and worn.
Samias makes sure he's dusty and grimy, looking tired as he passes the gate. Trying to look like a regular guard on the caravan.
Draalush? first of all you are the one person without a public wanted poster at all, second I still don't see an equipment list other than armor on your profile
Karla, when are you taking the potion? they're taking about three minutes to a wagon and you catch sight of the inspectors 4 wagons down
Karla keeps her hood up, sitting near the back of the wagon. She drinks the potion one wagon out. If the load on the wagon conceals the action, she'll drink there, otherwise she'll hop off to use the body of the wagon as cover. She is 2'9", so hopefully that will be simple enough.
"Karla. What form will you take?"
Karla's image settles on an older female halfling, with black hair (with a few streaks of gray), as opposed to her usual bright red, and a long scar across her left cheek. Her features are more rounded, and eye colour shifts from green to brown. Her cloths change to more weathered, and worn.
you are able to position your back to the inspectors(these are regular guards) while you drink the potion. one of the younger guys reacts to your changes a little nervously. the inspectors come over and have you leave the wagon to be sure there are no hidden compartments. one of the inspectors comments "hey buddy don't be nervous, you're just the muscle."
before anyone else can say anything the lady with you says "it's his first time out of the city since coming here, didn't think he would shake so visibly."
the guard smiles evilly "he he, yeah good luck with that kid."
they are satisfied there are no hidden caches and the whole caravan is waved through
As they leave the guards, Draalûsh whispers to nobody in particular: "good for us that Consortium guards are dim."
"Yes. Let's hope we didn't spend all of our luck before leaving the gate. We have quite a road ahead of us."
after you're well clear of the gate the young mercenary who was acting nervous bursts into a loud whisper to the older guy "what the hell was that? we weren't told these people were fugitives!"
in response the older mercenary says "are you daft? of course they're fugitives, or they owe someone money, or someone's trying to kill them for something entirely unrelated, else they wouldn't be doing mercenary work for free. what did you think we were signing up for when the madame approached us?"
"that's not the point, the point is we could've put the whole caravan at risk. and would it kill you to keep your voice down?" the older mercenary is giving the younger one a very judging look right about now, and the others in the wagon are rolling their eyes very obviously.
Draalûsh overhears the doubting young mercenary and tries to calm him and break the ice a bit:
"Don't worry overmuch. Our presence won't reduce your pay packet. Or anyone else's for that matter."
"Besides, the guards we've met there are about as thick as thick gets."
"They wouldn't have noticed us even if we painted ourselves purple and danced naked in front of them singing !"
"Yes. We have reasons for traveling young one.The the specific details will remain our own. The madame has business interests up north and doesn't care for us to be marked as leaving town, that's all you need to know."
Hashik awnsers in a smooth tone.
"We are also here to add our arms and skills to bolster the safety and security of this caravan. We are all on the same team here are we not?"
Karla sighed with both relief, after passing the gate. one day, I'll be back. she promised to herself. and they'll find that justice burns.
She listened with interest to the conversation the mercs were having. The young should be watched. He could be a problem.
he visibly relaxes and says "I guess you're right about us being on the same side. sorry about that, its just I wasn't expecting this at all."
you're currently following the cliff-side road, the terrain rocky from the beginning. you are informed that will quickly give way to a rocky and hilly desert, no sand, with small fishing villages all along the coast. we won't be bothering with most of these, just often enough to refill on water and food. there is a 3 watch system with a pause in between each for food and rest. morning, midday rest and lunch, afternoon, dinner, night watch, breakfast and so on. you'll be on night watch and sleeping during the morning in one of the wagon's hammocks. there are 3 light wagons dedicated to mercenary sleeping, with 8 hammocks each. you will be walking along the caravan afternoon watch as well, if you don't have anything better to do.
I will need Samias to make either one survival check or 7 for the first week, as that is something better for you to do.
Samias keeps his eyes open and moves to the front to find the best path for the caravan.
your choice if you're rolling for the week or the days of the week, I'll take that for the days of the week, more on the advice after this social encounter
after a while the caravan stops for the midday heat, about an hour into it some mousy dude comes over to your area in a huff and asks "are you the 5 surprise additions?"
"Last minute additions, if that's what you mean", Draalûsh replies.
Hashik watches the man with interest, but is content to let Draakush do the talking for the moment.
"yes, well one of the mercenaries was giving me a rather anemic attempt to scam me out of half your money. I didn't authorize the contracting of additional mercenaries because we couldn't afford it. the only reason we didn't fire him was because he actually owns some stock in the company. anyway, we can't pay you, and we can't give you any meals for free. but if you happen to kill any dangerous creatures during the nightwatch, we would be willing to buy the valuable parts of them off of you. we also have a cart and a few horses for sale."
Samias shrugs, he's happy to range ahead of the caravan and hunt for the pot. "Trying to extort a business he owns stock in? That's an odd thing to do."
20 heavy wagons, 10 medium wagons, 10 light wagons with roughly a third of the mercs asleep at a given time.
edit: with several spare horses
"it wasn't extortion really. he said he hired some mercenaries at half price, but that he had to pay them. them being you. gruff voice, kinda old for a merc. him and his division will be sharing night shift with you as punishment." the man will take his leave if there are no more questions.
Samias I'll allow an hour per day without interfering with your hunting. to talk with people, but there is a well used and maintained coast road in between cities. I'll also count the week started after the first day as there is no game that close to the capitol.
"Me and my friends are not going to cost any extra."
I don't eat much, anyway. Karla jokes.
"That too."