I say, what is the hubbub all about? I'm quite curious, I say we try to get a closer look!
Tiberius speaks to the group.
Zethaya first starts toward the alleyway but then stops to consider.
"A protest perhaps? I would like to know what is going on."
Zan hikes her thumb at the alleyway when asked if there's a way around, though she doesn't seem to be interested in taking the detour. Rather, she slows slightly while approaching the intersection near the protest, and briefly stands on the tips of her toes to try to get a look.
Noting the wolfhound-like creatures feeding down the alley, Aerin nodded in agreement with Tiberious and Zethaya. "Disturbing an eagle while it is on its kill is a good way to get your eye pecked out; I imagine it is much the same with furry, stub-tailed eagles of the earthbound variety. Forward, I say," the genasi concluded, starting to weave his way forward through the throng ahead.
You start to push your way into the crowd. Lots of people have signs of protest, yelling, and waving their arms. The signs read, "Harmonium Hypocrisy" Or "Freymor is innocent!" Other signs read, "Justice for Elsé!" Or "Hamg Elsé's killer up high!"
The crowd looks to be at least several hundred thick.
Up ahead, you see a group of Mercykillers on a wooden platform. There's a man in chains in the center with a rope around his neck. Around the platform are Harmonium soldiers, looking uneasy as they try to keep the crowd away from the platform. The hardheads are dressed up in their red armor, with large tower shields they're using to push the crowd back. Other hardheads not involved in immediate crowd control are armed with mancatchers.
One Mercykiller, dressed up in plate mail with spikes coming out of the shoulders and leading faces on the knees, steps forward to address the crowd, Bickem Freymor, you have been convicted of 15 counts of murder, but most prominently, the ritualistic murder of one Elsé Emora -
Harmonium Lies! you hear a voice cry out.
Kill him! another screams.
The Mercykiller continues as if he didn't hear, - in the pursuit of gaining eldritch powers for yourself. You nailed her to a wooden X and had her flayed alive!
A voice nearby says, They've pinned every last illegal death by the hardheads and Mercykillers on him, just because he dared to quit the harmonium and told their secrets to the press. Everything they're saying is a lie; they never even caught Elsé's killer - they just blamed him.
The Mercykiller addresses the man, Do you have anything to say for yourself?
The man on the stage is wearing dirty off-white robes, no shoes, and his hair is greasy and stringy. The rope around his neck leads up to a crossbeam. He stands proud and tall, as if he has nothing to lose. He stares out at the crowd and smiles, and as he does so, the crowd grows silent. As he starts to speak, the crowd surfed forward, trying to hear - pushing you with it
The man speaks in a normal tone, and if the crowd didn't become silent, you'd never be able to hear him. I stand before the crowd today because I was accused and sentenced for the crime of murdering the woman Elsé. The woman I loved. This was their vengeance on me for daring to speak the truth. They murdered my wife and are going to hang me for it. I pleaded my case. My truth been ignored.
He nothing but a liar! one man yells out, and another turns to punch him. A small fight breaks out at that spot.
But the man continues on, If this will be my legacy then I have one choice to me. My last words in this city shall be the truth to those that stand witness on the day of my death. And my truth is this: The Harmonium was wrong.
As soon as he says those last words, a Mercykiller on the stage moves a wooden lever, and the floor drops out beneath the man; his fall stops short of the ground by several feet as he hangs.
The crowd starts to go wild, and fights start breaking out all around you as protesters on either side dig into each other and the harmonium.
Soolam attempts to stay where he is.
In addition, he begins speaking into a harmonium soldier's mind. He was innocent. He was innocent. He was innocent. He was innocent. He was innocent. He was innocent. He was innocent. He was innocent. As he is doing this, he watches curiously for the man/woman's reaction, not knowing whether this power will even work or not.
Duncan is successful in trying to open up a hole, giving everyone else advantage if they wish to stay or leave.
Hearing the mans proclamation Tiberius attempts to save him by cutting the rope tied to him with a bit of fire magic. He stretches his hand out, above the heads of most in the crowd and utters a few words in draconic before a small jet of flame shoots from his hand.
whether he managed to hit the rope or not he then lets the crowd push and pull him around to hopefully mix in and be lost in the mob before trying to make his way out.
with little success due to having let the crowd carry him a bit too much.
Duncan is successful in trying to open up a hole, giving everyone else advantage if they wish to stay or leave.
Tiberius manages to sever the rope as the man falls. One of the soldiers in red cries out, This isn't right, he's innocent! and he grabs the man and pull him away from the crowd and away from the other hardheads and Mercykillers. You see some of the other hardheads join him and form a protective circle around them as they move away from the Mercykillers - clearly not all of them were comfortable with what they were doing, even if they were just following orders.
Soolam watches in amusement, keeping close to the others. For now.
Zethaya let's herself be carried by the crowd initially. When one of the hardheads begins dragging the accused away, she tries her best to stay close to them.
In what seems appropriate for a Cipher, Zan lets herself be carried on the currents of the crowd.
After about half a minute Tiberius tries to push his way through the crowd once again to get out the front.
the dragonborn can't seem to push his way through the crowd, likely due to not wanting to be too rough and rude to the people surrounding him.
I say, please, pardon me. Just, trying to. Why, I never! Bloody hell pardon me!
Seeing his traveling companions going with the tide of the human river, he lets out a sigh and starts forcing his way down with the current.
As you wind your way through the loud and angry crowd, with Duncan shoving aside the occasional protestor and rioter, you manage to follow the guards. You see them escape into a building not too far from where you're at.
But you're still in the thick of the crowd.
Suddenly, a small spout of flames roars up nearby, accompanied with the sound of breaking glass. Another Molotov Cocktail goes flying through the air and spills fire onto a group of protestors.
The area immediately around you clears up a bit. There's two people on fire in the clearing. You can see an angry group of protestors headed towards the building the harmonium officers escaped into.
Roll initiative.
Scene: you're in a clearing that's now roughly 20' diameter circle. From your position, the execution platform is 50 ft "up stream" or forward. The building the harmonium officers is 40 ft to the forward-left. Both sides of the street are flanked with buildings; the street itself is only about 40 ft wide. The crowd in total fills up about 200 ft long of the street, and it's spreading it now as fires are starting to erupt, creating pockets of open space that you can try to get to. The next closest is through 15 ft of crowd to the forward-right.
Soolam becomes much lighter as he charges forward, trying to get through the crowd. As he does, he selects a protester, and tries to break their brain, at least a little.
Tiberius shoots a jet of flame along the ground infromt of the the incoming group.
I would move no closer than that friends.
Zan notes that fires are beginning to spread, and looks for a way to follow the team while avoiding the fires.
Aerin frowned both at the angry crowd, and the fires springing up. He had all the sympathy in the world for the man at the center of the dispute, but it hardly seemed like his fight, not what with various groups of heavily armored and armed factions squabbling over him. He had a portal to find and a book to deliver.
He looked around for any sign of the cat, then for the silent woman that had carried of the book, determined to stay close to the object of their mission. He had several options should things get out of hand, including rising above this mess, though he hoped to save that solution as a last resort as he suspected it would make him a lovely, floating target. For now, he’d try to weave his way in the same direction as the book-carrying woman.
Duncan runs up to one of the people on fire in the clearing and attempts to help him/her put out the flame.
For this battle, the reactions and results of the crowd will mimic the reactions and results of your party. Since you've sided with Freymor, the more successful you are, the more the pro-Freymor crowd will become. The more damage you take, the more the anti-Freymor side will be successful.
Initiative Order (I'll use standard initiative rules for this one, since you're all kind of spread apart and going in different directions)
Tiberius
Protestors
Duncan
Soldiers
Saloom
Zan & Zethaya
Aerin
Tiberius, closer to the stage than any of his companions, tries to intimidate the protestors from heading towards the building. With the anger already built up and several fires roaring, the short-lived flame seems to do little to stop them. One of them does speak up, Hey, isn't that the berk who set him free? Get him!
Two of the protesters start pushing through the crowd towards Tiberius (will reach him next round). The other three continue on towards the building (they will reach it in three rounds).
Duncan rushes over to help put extinguish one of the berks on fire; the basher starts rolling on the ground while Duncan beats him with his cape until the flames go out.
The other Berk is still on fire.
The guards who stayed near the platform have decided that this situation is too much for them to handle by themselves, and have started escorting the Mercykillers to safety. It's likely they'll call for backup as soon as they can.
Saloom fires a mental spear into one of the protestors still headed towards the harmonium, and the man falls to the ground, unconscious. There are two remaining.
Fire DC: 14
Soolam fires another bolt of mental energy towards one of the other protesters, trying to knock him/her out.
Noting Duncan moving to help extinguish burning people, Zan follows suit and changes course to help the other person who is still on fire.
Zethaya conjures purple energy to her hands and thrusting one hand forward at one of the protesters, and the energy leaps toward him.
"Stay back! This is not worth dying over!" she shouts.
Duncan, seeing that the unnamed silent woman is aiding the burning citizen and that rioters are now turning on Tiberius, puts himself between them and the dragonborn. He draws his blade, points it at the coming swarm and shouts:
Enough innocent blood has been spilt today! I beg you, go back to your homes! If the man is guilty, justice will come to him!
Next action.
W/ advantage?
Zethaya fires off some magical energy at one of the protesters headed towards...
...Tiberius, and he falls to the ground. The other looks at his companion, and then looks at Zethaya with fear in his eyes. He nods in agreement that this isn't worth dying over, and he turns and runs hoping to get away (especially now that he doesn't have a friend to bolster his courage).
Zan follows Duncan's lead and helps the other poor sod on fire.
Aerin, looking around for the cat, sees him jumping from one protester's head to another as he tries to follow his hired help.
Tiberius tries to head back into the crowd, but is unable to effectively push his way out.
Tiberius moves closer to the building.
now look, I understand you may be upset, however I strongly recommend you chaps compose yourselves before someone, ahem, you, gets burnt, as it were. Now, what say we sit and talk this out hm?
With two of his group already moving to help the unfortunate person caught in the fire, Aerin turned his attention to any other sources of particular problem. He scanned the immediate crowd, as well as looked for any further bomb throwers, before attempting to slip through the crowd in the direction of the others. At this point he had no intention of seriously harming people, but he was reserving his “crowd clearer” if things turned too stormy.
Tiberius tries to talk the two violent protesters out of their violence.
Sod off! one of them yells back.
The other protester looks at the first, Now wait, Leon, the crowds mood seems to be shifting. I think we're on the losing side here. Maybe we should go home.
The first rounds on the second. You too, Jorn? What in Baator's hell, man? That rat bastard killed Elsé. You know it. I know it. The Mercykillers know it. And even if some of his old harmonium brothers are trying to protect him, they know it too. She was our friend, and she deserves justice. I don't care what some lizard says, he's not part of this. If you turn away, when I'm done with him, I'm coming after you.
Jorn responds, Come on, Leon. I ain't saying that, I'm saying that now's not the time. We'll get justice for her later. Come on, let's get out of here before the rest of the hard heads show up.
The two of them grab their fallen friend and make their way to leave.
===================================
The crowd's mood has shifted, and the more violent protestors seemed to have dispersed. Zan helps put the last man on fire out, as other protestors start to put out the fires on the grounds. Word gets around that more harmonium are coming, and the crowd starts to thin enough where you no longer require checks to move through.
Well, that was a bit wild. What do you say we keep headed towards the portal? It's only half a mile or so away.
"I'm curious as to what the truth here is, but I suppose we can find out later. Very well, let's move on." Zethaya responds.
Aerin took in the dispersing crowd and then nodded to the cat. "Only fools willingly stand between two bickering rocs. Let us go on before this starts up once again."
He glanced around to assure himself that everyone is accounted for. "Anyone injured?" he asked.
The silent woman shakes her head in the negative.
quite, I say, we can follow up on this later. I just didn't feel quite right with it all.
Duncan dusts off his cloak, frowning at a hole burned through it.
"Aye, we kept it from becoming a blood bath, I call that a win."
You move away from the crowd and finish up the last of the distance. The clerk's office is small and subtle.
This is the place; the portal is the front door, all we have to do is tear a piece of paper in exactly two halves and write the letter E on each half. Anyone have some paper?
"I do," the genasi replied, fishing about in his pack and withdrawing a neatly folded page. Distractedly, he tried to hand it to the cat as he frowned in study at the door.
Jysson looks at the paper Aerin is trying to hand to him. Then looks back at Aerin. Then looks at his paws, then at the paper, then back at Aerin.
Aerin was so intent in his study that he was momentarily oblivious to the fact that cats lacked fingers. Or opposable thumbs. Or writing implements.
After a long while it occurred to him that the paper was still in his hand. He turned to stare at Jysson blankly for a few long moments. Finally, he took the paper in both hands and carefully tore it into equal halves. Digging his inkpot and pen out from his case, he airily inscribed the letter E on both halves, blowing on the ink to dry it.