"I don't know anyone who knows 'im, no... I don't really have contacts in many of the lower-level street gangs. That said, I do know where they operate, and what they deal in; as far as I can tell, they're based somewhere in the Coins--real surprising, I know--but they've been spotted movin' around the Ivy District a fair bit in recent weeks. They're movin' crates or somethin', nobody knows why. They deal in drugs, mainly, not to mention fencing whatever valuables they can get their hands on." Johnny pauses, folding his arms over his chest as he takes a seat and examines the pages in front of him. He picks one up, examining it, before sliding it across the desk to the party. On it are notes about a tavern called the Black Dragon, along with names and dates penned on it. "One of their lieutenants has a room that's permanently reserved, in the back of the Black Dragon. He's a dwarf, goes by Ogrin, a real surly fellow. I might start there, if I were you. From what I can tell, that's one of the place where they do quite a bit of business."
"I see..." Darius drums his fingers, clearly thinking about something but not interested in discussing his thoughts in front of this man. "I would assume they have significant connections in the pesh trade then. If nothing else, it is a useful lead. I suppose we owe you some thanks for that. And it's good to meet an informed man who actually has a few manners."
"This Ogrin fella gotta reputation for blowing things up?" Ahto asks, cracking his knuckles.
Pyrrha scoffs at Darius's compliment to Johnny.
At the question about Ogrin's reputatiin Pyrrha adds, I'd say he does. We best be cautious poking our noses around his room. I dont know what he used but I'm it would be foolish to think he used all on it in the kidnapping attempt.
"Blowin' things up? No, not unless y'count his temper. The guy's a street tough, but he's good at what he does. Still, as long as y'don't go pokin' too far into his business I doubt you'd have a fight on yer hands, unless you've got real sh*t luck." Johnny chuckles, shaking his head. After a second or two, his expression becomes all-business yet again, with a pointed look at Pyrrha. "Tough crowd, I guess. Point being, I'd guess that if they're involved their just the middlemen, they're not exactly at the heart of this plot, y'know? I've got a guy who works there, he can get you into the room without any trouble. He's a halfling, real somber-looking chap... you'll know 'im when you see him."
"So...off to the Black Dragon, then?" Ahto replies. "I wouldn't call our luck sh*t exactly, but mine's smelled better." He gives a rumbling chuckle.
"I believe that would be a reasonable course of action. And I don't think we have any other leads that require immediate attention."
So we meet up with your friend at this place and he gets us into the reserved room? Like officially into the room for a meeting or unofficially so we can search through the place in hopes of finding a name that obviously leads us to the psychos that turned a gang into a mercenary group that tried to murder us?
"Well, I was thinkin' it might be best not to kick the hornet's nest before y'need to, and just try talkin' to 'im, first," Johnny says with a scowl, before he sighs and returns to a more neutral expression. "Then, if that don't turn nothin' up, he gets you in while Ogrin an' his boys are out on business or somethin' and you lot can poke around. That's really up t'you, though. If you wanna go poking around first, be my guest. Just let 'im know when you get there."
A rare opportunity to command the terms.
Pyrrha turns to the others, Well, should we risk it and gain Intel before meeting or risk the meet first?
"Might be nice to case the place and have a chance to plan," Ahto says.
"Then let's get going," Azulth says, speaking up for the first time since arriving. "Skulk around and find what can be found. Fits my talents well enough."
"It seems I'm outvoted. Very well."
"Alright, alright. You all head over there, I'll have my boy clear the room out by the time you're there. Be careful not to leave too much of a trace, mind; that'd probably come back t'haunt you." Johnny grins, cracking his knuckles--all eleven of them--before ushering you all out of the door. "Well, go on. The place'll be ready by the time you get there."
The walk to the Black Dragon isn't a particularly long one, nor is it eventful. Once inside, you can see it's a less rowdy pub than some of you are used to, but still not devoid of that sort of atmosphere. A surly half-orc behind the bar gives you a once-over as you enter, but doesn't pay much attention after. Seated at the bar is, sure enough, a halfling holding a flagon of ale nearly the size of his head. He sports a nasty scar from his ear to his jawline, and as he looks over in your direction you can tell one of his eyes is glass. "So, you the folks Johnny told me about? Ogrin and his boys are out on business for a bit, if you want t'poke around. I'd venture you've got maybe half an hour, an hour tops before they're back. Just wanted t'let you know." He gestures to the backroom, the door just slightly ajar. "I wouldn't be there when he gets back, mind."
"Let's get to it then," Ahto says as he moves towards the door. Ever suspicious, he looks at the door and the area around it before attempting to slip inside.
Ahto looks around, but he doesn't manage to find anything useful; at least not without help.
Pyrrha hesitated a long time before moving into the room, the pros and cons were clearly being listed and compared against each other before she made her final decision. With a sigh she started with a quick sweep of the room for obvious signs of something useful, but something wasn't right. I never was great at this. It normally helps to know something about the mark before grabbing for anything that might be useful. I will need a minute or several minutes to do anything more than a glance.
"We've got a half-hour, if our 'friends' can be trusted. Let's use as much of it as we can and see what we stumble across."
Letting the other search the room themselves, Darius instead sits down at the bar. "You must know quite a bit about Ogrin if he's one of your regulars," he says casually.
As the group does their best to surreptitiously search the back room of the Black Dragon Inn, they finally stumble across a false floor panel, beneath which they find a hidden safe. The safe is wrought iron and quite large, almost two feet across. Other than that, the party finds little of interest other than some letters to and from various business associates, one of which is addressed to none other than Coleman Gauss. The letter discusses a contract to suppress other antiquities dealers in the Coins; it mentions several people by name, one of which is Darius. It doesn't mention how to go about the task, other than that he gives them leave to do as they please. There isn't, however, any mention of Pesh.
Out at the bar, the barkeeper raises an eyebrow at Darius for a moment, until he finishes cleaning out the inside of a mug. "I know 'im well enough, yeah. He's got the back room rented out permanently for a fair bit of coin, so I ain't complainin'. Why, you got some sorta business with 'im? He'll be back in an hour or so, I'd guess, went out to take care of some business."
"Of a sort," Darius says. "Nothing that would make a ruckus in your establishment or prevent him from keeping up his rent of course. But I like to know a bit more about who I'm going to be talking to. It's so hard to find trustworthy business partners these days. You never know who else they might be dealing with behind your back."
"Yeah... sure." The half-orc grunts once, leaning down to grab something off of a shelf for another customer. "Tell you the truth, I don't know the guy that well. He pays good coin, so he gets the backroom. He's a veteran in the Vultures, and the boys he brings around are usually fresh faces; he tests them here to weed them out before they get t'anything bigger. He meets clients for jobs here; mostly protection rackets or smash'n'grab kinds of things, but every once and a while they get something more involved. He's out on a job like that right now, actually. He's a blunt fellow, likes t'talk straight with people and get the same, which means he's easily made irritable by lots of clientele." He stops for a second, seeming to be done, before his eyebrows perk up. "Oh, also; he's damn good with that axe. Don't make him mad, I don't feel like redoin' the walls or nothin' back there."
While the others peruse the letters in the room, Azulth kneels down to start working on the safe they've found, pulling a rolled set of thieves' tools from his pack.
"It's quite refreshing to deal with someone who's straight forward," Darius says. "Far too many people like to talk in circles these days." He pull out a gold coin and flips it on to the counter. "Would you get my a goblet of wine while we're waiting? And keep the change."
"Darius'll be keen to know Gauss has it in for his business," Ahto says with a smirk. "Look's like there's nothing damning in all this paperwork, though."
He moves over towards where Azulth is working on the safe. "Any luck with the safe?" he asks.
"Sure thing." The half-orc pours Darius a fine Chelish red wine, and pockets the gold piece. Unless Darius asks him any more questions, he leaves him alone in order to deal with other customers.
Meanwhile, Azulth cracks open the safe with practiced ease. Inside the safe is a series of sacks full of coin, as well as shipping manifests for shipments owned by one Coleman Gauss. It also contains business ledgers from several other businesses in the Coins, likely his Gauss's once or current competition. Conspicuously missing is anything else on Darius, as it seems your new accomplice is harder to nail down or extort. Still, it's a fair bit of a paper trail linking the Vultures to the suspicious closings of Gauss's competitors that could prove useful. In addition, a list of Vulture members and their payroll can be found; you find a few of the names you recognize, Eran in particular, crossed out in black ink. Perhaps the most interesting thing to find, though, is a series of instructions from someone named 'Dakrin', which is marked on the cover of the opened letter. The paper is rough and scorched in a few places, and wrinkled throughout; the note is written in rough Dwarven, but without someone who can translate it there's not much else to know.
Seeing the trove of paperwork, but unable to make heads or tales of it, Ahto slips out to the bar and taps Darius on the shoulder.
"There's some records'n stuff in there that might interest you. Go on in, I'll keep watch," he says with a practiced whisper.
Darius looks up from his drink and sighs. "Very well," he says. "Make some sort of fuss if someone comes in. This should only take a minute." He heads in to the back room to see what the rest of the group has found.
Azulth opens the safe and glances at Ahto without comment. He quickly skims over the contents and hands them off to the others in the room, figuring they might make more sense of the information. He does read through it himself when the time comes, his eyes narrowing as he sweeps over the records. To him, it means nothing more than another illegitimate businessman, but then he doesn't have as personal a stake in this Gauss character.
Eventually he sets the papers down and steps back, folding his arms. "So what do we do now? Steal the coin to anger him, or leave it to hide our presence? Confront him over the dealings here? Maybe ask about this Dakrin if you don't know him."
As Darius and Azulth read over the papers themselves, Darius not only finds mention of his own name amongst the papers, but nothing more than the passing mention the others noticed earlier; he likely makes particular note of the fact that they have very little information on him. More importantly, though, Darius's knowledge of the Dwarven language comes in handy when he finds the note. While the script seems to be written both poorly and in a great hurry, he manages to decipher fairly quickly and without much trouble.
Ogrin,
I've been in contact with Gauss, he's told me the next shipment of Pesh will be coming within the week. Patrols down towards the docks has been increasing in the past few weeks, so you'll need to be careful, because if anyone tries to inspect those hollowed-out 'antiques' Gauss is pushing, they'll find it without much trouble and he doesn't want anyone to start slaughtering the city guard. More importantly, Gauss has bought into the Last Disciple hook, line, and sinker; the money he's funneling to him through the Pesh trade isn't something likely to be forgotten if it happens to dry up, do we understand? Eran's already about a step away from having his head blown off for losing that damn girl--twice, for f*ck's sake--and I can't promise it'll look any better for you if this doesn't continue to pan out.
More importantly, Eran told me his lieutenant was confronted by some of the people who stopped them from abducting the girl down in the Siphons; apparently, his men were too damn cowardly to fight him, and his lieutenant felt it'd be better to get the word out that people were on our tail... one of which was Darius Goldwin. He said he didn't catch sight of the others, or the girl... either way, that pawn broker's involved, which means he might have some idea we're after him, too. No sign of the tiefling, but he's taking every inch he can get since we got our hands on him, so no doubt he was elsewhere trying to cause us trouble. Eran's going to see if he can't get a lead on where they're keeping the girl, and with who; they've been staking out that farmhouse where one of them lives, but no one's come or gone with her anywhere in sight. A group of them have been seen at Goldwin's shop, but the only women with them is that elf, not the one we're looking for. If we find her, we'll let you know so you can get her somewhere without any fuss.
-Dakrin
PS: The drop location had to change, it was a too much of a risk that Goldwin knew something about Gauss. You're to store the furniture in his warehouse behind the Black Dragon, under the false floor. Let me know when it's there and I'll get someone to start distributing.
Darius smirks at how little they know about him. "Perfect. These fools are stumbling around in the dark. And I have a nice group of violent new friends to throw at them. This is turning out to be a good day." He carefully goes over the note. "This is exactly what we're looking for. It not only identifies where the Pesh is coming in, but also how they're hiding it and where they're going to be storing it for now. Gauss is definitely in the Last Disciple's pocket and he's funneling him money. They're been watching my shop as well as a farmhouse connected to one of you, so we might want to do something about that. Oh, and Eran's lieutenant squealed on us about our little visit to him in the Siphons, so we might want to cut his tongue out if we run in to him again." He offers the not back to whoever handed it to him. "I suggest we skip our meeting and go make plans to ruin the next shipment. They know who we are and are interested in us for some reason. Something about a girl. Meeting with one of them is likely not going to end well."
The corner of Pyrrha's mouth curves up into a a sly, subtle smile. Almost hard to believe, but we might have finally started to get ahead of this mess. Let's get out of here. Gear up, and talk about our next steps somewhere less risky. I say leave the money and note so we don't risk them changing anything for now. We can always come back and take it later. Pyrrha says before quickly moving to leave.
"After we return everything to where it was so they don't know someone was in here. And perhaps we should bribe the bartender so he doesn't mention that we ever showed up then we can get out of here." He pulls out his notebook and jots down the relevant information from the note so he doesn't forget anything important. He leaves the others to clean up and heads back out in to the bar.
Replacing the scene of their investigation so as to not raise suspicion, the rest of the group remains in the back room as Darius approaches the bar. The bartender raises one eyebrow as he listens to the hasty moving of objects in his back room, but doesn't seem too interested. When Darius offers him a bribe, he runs his tongue over one of his tusks for a moment. "Another gold piece, friend, and Ogrin won't hear a word about you from me... or anyone else in here, if they know what's good for 'em." He gives some of the patrons at the bar a glare, and they all turn their heads away from the two men and return to their drinks. "And it seems they do." Assuming Darius pays him off, the group leaves the Black Dragon unimpeded and are free to head back to his shop to plan.
About halfway back to his shop, though, several members of the group notice something troubling; they're being followed. A group of several men do their best not to be noticed, but every once and a while they lot of them end up walking together, always following whatever path you take through the city streets. As you turn down an alley way, they follow yet again, but don't seem to have noticed you've caught onto them. A turn is coming up in the alley shortly, and from there you're only a short distance back to Darius's place.
"Have three, for being such a sporting friend." Darius pours several coins on to the bar and gestures for the group to follow him out.
He sighs as he notices their tail out of the corner of his eye. "I'm utterly surrounded by amateurs. Are there any criminals left in this town who aren't morons?" One of his eyes twitches slightly as he fails to keep the annoyance off his face. "So, I suppose we're going to want privacy when we get back to the shop," he says casually.
Azulth departs with the others after carefully resetting the safe the way he found it. On the way back to Darius's shop, he catches the tails out of his eye, and although they don't play across his face, similar thoughts to the broker's cross his mind. Was I that obvious when I was younger? Surely not. When the group starts moving through alleys and the tails don't stop, Azulth nearly rolls his eyes and decides he's had enough. Darius's comment is a nice sign he isn't alone, though. "Yes, we should probably make sure the windows are closed."
As soon as the group steps around the turn, Azulth plants himself against the wall, or behind whatever cover he can find. A dagger makes its way into his hand, and he crouches low, ready to spring out and use it.
Pyrrha wasn't a fool and notices the tails quickly after the others, but she had little skill or taste for subterfuge. Let's get further on a little before we deal with the situation at hand. I'd like to hit this problem from both sides so nothing slips through the cracks.
Pyrrha continues down the alley waiting for Azulth to fall back behind. When Azulth is behind them, she stops and coyly turns around with a knowingly wicked smirk.
"Yep. It's a bad idea to feed strays. They'll end up comin' around from here to Winternight."
He walks with Pyrrha until she stops and turns around.
He turns with her, then places his hands on his belt, within quick reach of his weapons.
Utterly oblivious to the fact that the group has caught onto their presence, the thugs follow the group into the alleyway; Azulth dives behind a pile of boxes as they approach, and they walk past him without ever glancing in his direction. Once they move past, the inquisitor can slide out behind them unnoticed, dagger in hand. The group turns about as a unit, facing the thugs who're startled by the sudden change in demeanor. "I, uh..." one of them says, stumbling over his tongue, "What're you doin'? Can't you see other people'r walkin' here? C'mon, either get a move on or get out of the way!" The others look at each other, nodding in agreement; one of them shouts a similar statement just a second too late for it to seem natural. "Well?" the man says, trying to nonchalantly rest his hand near the handaxe at his belt; he fails, clearly gripping the shaft of the axe as if to pull it free in a quick motion.
Azulth slips out from behind his cover as the thugs pass his position, fumbling their words and weapons when the others make it clear they've spotted the amateur tails. He studies the thug closest to him, noting his unprofessional posture, the slight off-balance of his stance. These are things Azulth was always decent at noticing about people--the church just trained him to use them to his advantage.
"Tough guys, huh?" Ahto says, cracking his knuckles and rolling his shoulders. "So, now that it's obvious you've done a crap job following us, what's next? Do you plan on using that?" he says to the man in front, pointing at the axe on his belt. "Well, you can try, but it's not going to go well for you. In fact, right now it's coin toss as to whether you'll wake up a few hours from now and start picking your teeth out of the cobblestones or if you're about to live your last miserable moments in this world watching your guts get spilled."
He fixes the lead man with a look that says he means everyone word of it.
Pyrrha rests her hand on her weapon and wills her magic to the blade granting it a dim glow. She's content to let Ahto control the start of the fight as she scans the alleyways for perhaps a less obvious threat.
"We weren't followin', uh... no one. We were just headin' the same way, that's all." The man flinches when Ahto points aggressively to the weapon at his belt, pulling his hand away for a moment. "You think I'm... you think we're afraid of you? There's more of us than there are of you!" the man says, clearly having forgotten Azulth was with your group at all--not surprising, given his talents. "Are you--" he starts, fumbling over his words, "Are you gonna rob us? Is that what this is? I'll... I'll call the guard! You don't want that now, do you?" A couple of his fellows nod, but the man doesn't seem very confident that you've bought his story. "We don't want no trouble, mister. Just... let us go, ain't nobody need to get caught up in a mess like this." Even as he asks, his hand 'surreptitiously' closes around the haft of his axe as it starts to leave his belt.
Oops! Looks like you wanna die, then," Ahto says in a casual tone as he springs forward at the thug drawing his axe. He pulls his his club and axe as he moves, swinging his club at the man.
As Ahto keeps them talking, and the thugs keep posturing like idiots, Azulth slips forward, and his dagger slips between two of the rearmost thug's ribs.
Although his first jab wasn't one of his best--Fumbling now? What's wrong with me?--Azulth follows it up with a quick slash, trying to capitalize on the man's surprise.
The man steps back in surprise as Ahto lunges forward with his club, but doesn't really do much in the way of avoiding the blow. Ahto cracks the man along the jaw with his head whips from the force of the blow as he stumbles backwards. He raises his free hand to his jaw, other hand now firmly clenching his axe, and holds the likely fractured bones gingerly. "You son of a--" the man starts to curse, before being cut off by the noise of the man at the back of the group as Azulth attacks him. Azulth catches the man by surprise and stabs him once in the back, and as he shouts in pain and goes to turn around, the inquisitor grips him by the jaw and cleanly slices his neck open and lets the body drop to the ground at his feet. The others panic as they realize it's time to fight back, but are still too disorganized to ultimately mount a counter-offensive.
Darius sighs. "Really, you're not very good at this." His eyes glow green and pressure closes on the nearest man's mind.