Ventus walks briskly away from Cillian after a curt nod, following his instructions. As he walks, he puts his dagger back into its sheath and uses his still-active prestidigitation cantrip to clean his face, neck, and arms entirely. He lowers his hood and uses the cantrip to change his hair color from platinum blonde to jet black.
Geoffrey nods, glad he had borrowed a guards outfit. It would hopefully be less suspicious than prison clothes. He would have to get some more clothes soon though.
Cillian took a short detour back to his father's manor. After a quick check to make sure there wasn't anyone around, he slipped in through the servant's entrance via a hidden key.
Of course they had tossed the place. Most things of value had been confiscated. Clothes, crockery, family heirlooms, rotting food, the contents of cabinets and drawers all decorated the floor all throughout the spacious manorhouse.
His father's sword, now sheared off at a steep angle and missing half it's crosspiece, all for the single monstrously powerful blow that had killed him, still lay on the ground in the middle of the brownish stain where Cillian had seen his father lying dead just before they'd dragged him away.
He picked up the blade and slammed it down into the center of the stain so it stood tall. He stared for a moment, saying nothing, then picked up the bottom half of sword. Just the grip was as long as his forearm. The sword had been huge. It had been a symbol of who his father had been and what he represented to the city. Shattering it had also been symbolic. The bastards who had done it knew it. They knew well the power of symbols, and of breaking them.
Their mistake was that they hadn't finished the job. Sometimes breaking a symbol doesn't destroy it. It just changes it.
His father hadn't been stupid. The important things weren't anywhere that would be easily found. The decoy safes had been broken open, but the real valuables where right where they were supposed to be.
Five minutes later Cillian left the house with a large duffel bag.
Behind him the house began to burn.
Geoffrey finds an abandoned alley, making sure he isn't followed and changes out of the borrowed guards outfit and into his far more comfortable robes. Now looking like nondescript but dirty traveller, he headed to the markets section for some fruit and directions to the rusty cup.
Cillian made his way into the alley and opened an old door next to a pile of half-rotted crates. He slipped inside leaving the door open a crack, waiting for the others to make their way in.
The safehouse was small. The rest of the building was a storage warehouse for the Far Horizons shipping company, who had found it was easier to store equipment in every port rather than rent them or cart them around with their cargo. The room had once been the apartment of the warehouse's overseer, the father of one of Cillian's childhood friends.
When the old man had died, no one told Far Horizons. Cillian's old pal had picked up where his father left off, and collected the meager sum that was paid through the counting house every month. He was gone now too, but the money was still collected and the equipment was still maintained for the rare occasion that a Far Horizon ship came into the decaying port. As far as he knew, Cillian had the only key to the overseer's apartment.
It wasn't the cold two-room hovel that made the place ideal for Cillian's purpose though. It was the warehouse itself, a veritable maze of massive containers and precariously stacked crates, full of places to hide things, or be hidden. Plenty of escape routes to the alleys or the roofs, and best of all, a massive, completely unused basement.
Cillian didn't know who's brilliant idea it was to build a basement in the wharf district. The mortar had softened giving the entire building a slight lean and the basement floor a noticeable slant. The ocean-side half of the floor flooded with six inches of water twice a day. Everything he'd put in it had to be up on blocks and treated with oil to avoid rot. It was freezing and damp and completely inhospitable.
It was perfect.
Harzhen travels through the sewers, emerging near his rooftop haunt in the middle of the lower-class quarter. He gets what rest he can under the small lean-to he has erected on a four-story abandoned tenement, then dresses in a voluminous cloak, which hides most of his features and (almost) his weapons. Wen the time is nigh, he travels as inconspicuously as possible to the Rusty Cup.
Ventus stops at his apartment on his way to the Rusty Cup, not surprised to see it has been emptied. Either the Chelish guard decided to appropriate the criminal's possessions, or his landlord, sick of waiting for payment which never came, sold all his stuff. At least another tenant had not been found yet. He closes and bolts the door, and heads over to a loose floorboard under his bed, and lifts it open. He removes a sack with a small journal in it, a diploma from his Academy, and a few letters from old school friends and family in faded ink. He shoves them in his backpack and then makes his way out and to the Rusty Cup.
Stopping only briefly to buy a half dozen apples and a loaf of bread from a street vendor, he makes his way to the Rusty Cup and into the alley and into Cillian's safehouse.
Cozy, he mutters as he enters and notes the water pooled at the ocean end. I brought some apples and fresh bread. Thought it might make a nice change from the fare we've been eating. he tosses an apple to Cillian and Harzhen (and anyone else who comes in) and breaks off a chunk of the loaf of bread with his now clean hands, then points a finger at the bread. The top becomes yellow, as though melted butter had been poured on it.
Would anyone else care for some butter flavor? he ask as he uses mage hand to levitate the bread over to the others. I am rather enjoying the free use of magic now that I don't need to hide it from pesky guards.
Cillian bites into the apple with slow relish, groaning as he Davies the flavor. "Tastes like freedom. Thank you."
"Hope everyone makes it."
Beorn pulls up the cowl of his cape to mask his Unfen features as he leaves the jail. He instinctively heads towards the docks to blend in with others new to the city. Once there he looks back for any pursuit and then ducks into an ally and reverses his cloak, changing its color before heading to the Rusty Cup. He speaks to no one and tries to avoid crowds, moving faster than most can, but not fast enough to draw attention.
He looks around the front door before entering to see if the tracks there tell him anything.
[/b]
Harzhen enters the tavern with his hood still up, and looks around till he spots those that he met in the prison. He moves slowly towards them, grabbing a cup of wine as he does so. He stops as he reaches their table, still standing. "We meet again," he growls.
With all of them crammed into the tiny hovel it was a bit uncomfortable. Cillian looked around.
"The way I see it, all of us have two choices. We can leave the city, or we can stay."
"Anyone who decides to leave will probably have an easier time of it, at least once you're outside the walls."
"Anyone who decides to stay is looking at living in hiding for a long, long time. I'm staying. I have my own reasons, and they basically involve taking down the folks who got me into the situation I'm in now. It's something I've thought about for a long time, but before I had too much to lose to set things in motion. Now I don't. I have a plan, but I'm going to need help. I sent Grafelda out of the city to pull some threads, so right now you folks are all the options I have. Based on how you handled our breakout, I'd say all of you have a lot to bring to this operation if you want it."
"Anyone feel like helping me bring down a government?"
"I was trying to find someone. Clues leading me here. So I will be here a while longer I imagine. If your cause is just I can help. Tell me more about this government and why it needs taking down. Geoffrey listens and is interested in helping if he can improve the lives of even one person.
"The syndicates control everything now. Most of the authority figures in the city, and their enforcers, are either in a syndicate, or are paid off by them. The few good people left have their hands tied or have succumbed to threats and blackmail. Crime is rampant, and the guard is in on it. Walk around for five minutes and you can see the decay the corruption has caused. No one who lives here feels happy or safe. Most are in debt to the syndicates in one way or another. Everyone with the ability to leave, has. The rest are drowning rats on a sinking ship, or bloodthirsty captains and their crews."
"If you're looking for someone, and they ended up here, that's not a good sign. No one comes here by choice anymore, not if they know what's best for them."
Harzhen listens to the rebellious talk in silence, but as Cillian pauses he leans forward. [b]"And how to you propose to change things? What things do you plan to set in motion?"
"I'm going to play the syndicates against each other. No one will know who we are, and the hints we'll drop will make each faction think we're working for a rival. The problem is that they are unified. There's a lot of bad blood between them, but they've managed to set it aside for the sake of business. When business gets bad, so will they. They'll blame us, and each other. Then the whole thing starts to fall apart. After that it's easy."
Harzhen frowns thoughtfully, considering Cillian's words. Easy? That's a word I wouldn't use too lightly, myself... He settles back, awaiting the queries of others.
Hmm. This is not my city. But to cause some trouble for a corrupt government, the same one that locked me up, well, I could enjoy that for a while. As long as no one objects to my picking up a choice trinket or two along the way. A man's gotta eat.
"Steal from the corrupt as much as you like," growls Harzhen. "But the honest folk of this city are under my protection. They're the reason we're doing this."
Agreed. I've no desire to take from honest folk. Most of those I'll take from will have little use for their valuables when I am done with them anyway. the barbarian says a little too lightly.
Harzhen cocks a hairless brow at the tall, rangy northman, but says nothing.
"I may join you on this venture. My... friend, isn't necessarily in this city but somewhere in Cheliax for sure. I'm not sure why either. But never mind. I shall help create what justice I can. I will not steal. Those we help I will accept what is rewarded nothing more." He took a bite from the fruit he hadn't yet finished and threw the final seed in the trash pile.
As you all talk the muffled sounds of heavy hooves outside draw your attention, as does a high-pitched scream.
Beorn flinches slightly at the sound and draws his weapon.
Is there a back way out of here? As I came in I noted very heavy book tracks near the door. Likely Hellknights...
"Someone is being whipped outside. Who would do that?"
Er, like I said. Hellknights. Beorn goes to look for a back way out.
"Lots of back ways out." Cillian says with a grim cast to his face as he looks in the general direction of the disturbance as though he could see through the walls.
"Follow me. I'll show you the warehouse. I want to take a look outside anyway."
Moving into the other room, Cillian unbolted and unchained a door and led them into a dark, narrow hallway full of boxes of ropes and block and tackle. At the end of the hallway was a small door that opened into a large dark room packed haphazardly with crates and boxes.
The small door turned out to be the entrance to a large cargo container. It was a simple but ingenius way of camouflaging the entrance to the apartment from the warehouse.
Cillian quickly navigated the maze of storage containers and found the outer wall where the massive bay doors were under heavy lock.
He slid a narrow slide window open and looked out into the street.
Harzhen follows Cillian through the warehouse, unslinging his bow and readying it as he does so.
Harzhen, a low, feral rumble building in his throat, surges forward towards the door handle, obviously planning to drag the door open and confront the Hellknights.
At Cillian's call for help in taking down the syndicates, Ventus laughs. I've been working to undermine the Chelish government for a few years now. I've been a mild-mannered apothecarist by day, information broker by night. Selling slaver dossiers to halfling freedom fighters, troop movements to revolutionaries, and information about the hierarchy of the Church of Asmodeus to heretics. Nowhere in my travels have I ever seen any place more in need of revolution than Cheliax and its House of Thrune. I've always worked alone in my endeavors, but maybe I'll have better luck as part of a group. If you are wanting to overthrow the syndicates, then you can count on my support.
Ventus also follows Cillian through the warehouse. Someone's being whipped outside? I can't hear it. You can tell the city's a hell-hole when the sound of whipping is so commonplace you could fail to hear it...
Beorn lays a cautioning hand on Harzhen's shoulder. His eyes show that he understands the man's pain. There are 5 of them Harzhen, in full hellknight armor. And likely more close by that can be summoned with a shout. Their victim has seen the worst of it. Revenge must wait.
Panting, Harzhen spins around to regard Beorn with his bright green eyes, ready to transfer his fury at the Hellknights to the Northlander. But as he sees the empathy in Beorn's eyes, his angry facade cracks a little, showing a glimmer of his sadness and helplessness. He frowns, and curses as he looks away. "The gods damn me, I know you're right, but... Argh." He stomps away to a patch of shadow, attempting to control his breathing.
"The most important part of this will be picking our battles. There is nothing we can do for that poor fellow right now. Let's talk about what we can do to ensure these sorts of things don't keep happening."
"We can't let the innocent get punished for things they didn't do. Just for looking like us."
"Well if we can't help him now, what can we do?"
"If we rush out there now, we expose ourselves, and this place." Cillian says grimly. "That guy will be taken to the prison. They'll figure out pretty quick that they have the wrong guy. If he's lucky they'll let him go. Probably they'll just let him rot in there, either way we have time to deal with it later."
"I don't have enough safehouses to rush into the street and right every wrong I see happening around me. We have to be smarter than that."
"First, we need to lay a false trail that we have fled the city. All we have to do is leave, change our appearances, and come back. We should do it a bit sloppy on the way out, stealing horses and charging out a gate, or going over the walls somewhere that we'll be seen. The Hellguard are no good at chases. Too much armor, even on their horses. If they go after us, we can loose them. I have a boat stashed a few hours outside of town. All we have to do is get there, and come back. If we leave at sundown, we can be back by dawn."
"Once we're back here and they aren't looking for us anymore, we can get this operation underway."
"Ok. Are yoy sure about them not chasing us down in the open outside the walls? Geoffrey consider staying or leaving once outside the walls again. There mighr be clues as to her whereabouts here, or there may not be. He had been in prison a month or two, she could be anywhere. But he still had to find the trail again. Here would do for now, especially if he helped right a few wrongs in this city. "I will follow you and watch your back Master Castilian. "
"Oh, they'll chase us. The thing is, that armor they wear is a symbol to them. The more impressive the armor, the more impressive the Hellknight. Only squires wear light armor, and squires don't man the gates or walls. They'll chase us, but we'll be faster. If there happens to be a mounted knight nearby that comes after us, we can lose them in the woods. Not many trails a horse can fit through. By the time they send trackers after us, we'll be in a boat coming back."
Beorn looks skeptical. Or they will shoot us down from the walls. They do not need to see us to think we have fled. Lets just lay low for a couple of days.
"If they think we are in the city they will go after everyone we know looking for us. They are Hellknights. Do you think they will be gentle? Do you think they will take "I don't know" as an answer?"
Luckily I know no one here. Beorn says, unconvinced of the risky plan. I have not ridden in years. How many of you can ride, if we were to find horses?
Do you really think, Cillian, that they won't rough up or even kill those who know us even if they do see us flee the city? Ventus raises his eyebrow. As you said, they won't take "I don't know" as an answer. Fleeing will only change the question the Hellknights ask, it won't stop them going after those who know us.
"They might, but it will be a whole lot worse if they think one of them might actually be hiding us."
"Hellknights stay focused on the here and now, mostly. They don't have enough resources to do more about a fugitive that leaves the city than post a bounty in neighboring areas."
"My dad used to be their Commander." He says cautiously. "I know their methods pretty well."
Harzhen's head snaps up to regard Cillian inscrutably at his last words. After a long moment, the inhuman-looking tiefling growls, "Well, there are none left in this city that care one whit for me." He stands straight, stepping out of the pool of shadows he had retreated to, his black- and red-mottled skin gleaming oddly where the light hits it. "Is there need of me to join you in this dangerous deception out of the city?" He holds Cilian's gaze steadily as he awaits the man's response.