Erick nods to the Captain, and gives him a firm handshake. "Thank you very much." He makes sure that whoever is supposed to pick up the cargo does so.
Zyrel bows slightly and takes the proffered hand. "It was pleasant to work with you."
"So, Maulia then? Anyone know their way around here?"
an interesting journey. My first sea voyage. Can't say that again
Elsa looked around for a sign saying Hahmayad Exports
Erick looks around, and holds up a copper penny when he catches the eye of a local urchin. He's found that it's a sad but constant truth that every city has street urchins, either too poor for their parents to school them, or orphans with no parents, who survive on the streets. When he can, he tries to help them out a bit, having spent some time like that himself in his youth. When the urchin comes over, he flips the penny to them. "Here boy, you know where Hahmayad Exports is?"
An interesting journey. My first sea voyage. Can't say that again
Elsa looked around for a sign saying Hahmayad Exports
The tiefling frowns and nods, agreeing with the halfling.
The party is able to find their way to Hahmayad Exports with the help of the street urchin. It is a stout building, made of sandstone bricks with a sign written in both Taldan and Kelish reading, Hahmayad Exports
Erick hands the urchin another penny. "Ok kid, wait out here until just before dark, or until we come out. We might need help finding something else, or information. If we don't come out before dark, get back to your safe place before dark, and come back in the morning and see if we need more stuff. Got it?" He tussles the urchin's hair and heads into the building, to report in.
Kristleifur, with his musket slung across his shoulders, steps into the building nonchalantly. He eyes up the design, and any place a defender might lurk.
Maybe some of Erick's ways are rubbing off on me, heheh!
Zyrel eyes the urchin cautiously. 'Is that ringworm?'
Toting his entire inventory he follows Kristleifur through the door.
A dark-skinned woman sits at a desk, writing busily at some paperwork.upon the party entering. She looks up and says flatly with what sounds like a Mwangi accent, ”What is it? I haven’t much time.”
"Sedik sent us, on the Trade Wind, said to stop by and meet Maulia. That you?"
She nods at Kristleifur. She then scowls and says, "Did he now? Why am I supposed to believe you?"
The tiefling stepped forward. "Because we have spent several weeks down in a hot and muggy hold safeguarding the contents of it's safe-deposit boxes for which we were hired. Because we even defended it's contents from an undead attack."
Armanus continues, leaning over the desk for emphasis. "Because as busy as you claim to be, you have no time to recover from the body harm you WILL receive if you do know direct us to the correct caravan for Alkenstar so we can receive our due payment!"
Kristleifur does his best to look menacing next to Armanus. With surprising skill.
"Yeah! What he said!"
Maulia stands up and leans toward Armanus, "Well, if you are working for Sedik, then I am sure that he will be most displeased if he finds out that you threatened one of his most senior employees. If you have indeed been hired by him, you might want to rephrase that."
"Ah so you do work for Sed! In that case, we would really love to talk with you, and get moving."
Zyrel sighs, and sits patiently on a chair, like an adult waiting out a child's tantrum.
"I'm assuming that your comment asking why you should trust us was not meant as an insult. Given that I doubt we are the first group sent by your employer there is probably a common passphrase or token involved. Possibly you were trying to cue us to produce such a thing." Zyrel sighs in disappointment again "Our mutual employer was extremely rushed at our employment and did not make such explicit." he rolls his eyes "Perhaps if you tell us exactly what you expect us to do so you can trust us we can stop wasting each other's time and restart this conversation."
Erick watches everyone try to convince the woman using words, and then nods. "Very good, Ma'am. I'm sure Sedik will be pleased you gave them short shift." He pulls the paperwork that Sedik had scrawled out for them, at his request, from the small waterproof pouch and hands it over. "This is a note he sent along, to ensure your very wise concerns were allayed."
Maulia raises her eyebrows before nodding tersely, ”Well then, seems that I was wrong. Glad to see Sedik sent at least a few people with a bit of sense. Any case, caravan leaves tomorrow at noon, down the road from the southernmost gate.” She sits back down and resumes her paperwork. Without looking up she says, ”There’s an inn down the street if you need lodging, Merchant’s Rest.”
"Please forgive the question. How will we know which caravan, and is the letter sufficient to identify us to them." Zyrel asks.
Kristleifur looks at the letter, looks at Maulia, then at Erick.
"Oh yeah. There was a letter! Oops! And yeah, which caravan?"
Erick rubs his chin. "Well, it could be different, I suppose, but the last time I dealt with a Caravan, there was only one Caravan. Kind of the purpose of a Caravan, you have everyone going in one big group so the bandits take a look at it and throw up their hands and go back to playing old maid and waiting for some idiot nobleman who thinks he's too high and mighty to be attacked by bandits. Unless you've got caravans leaving the same day going to two different destinations wildly apart." He shrugs. "Last time I checked though, the caravansary try to avoid that because you have some idiot merchant hireling who wants to go to Timbuktu and ends up taking a wrong turn at Alber Querky."
Kristleifur listens intently.
"Uh huh. This is new to me. The surface is weird."
My mother spoke of caravans. A great way to see the world Elsa starts moving, let's find this inn. I'm hungry.
Zyrel shrugs "Elves don't really do caravans. Most of us are self sufficient, and when we do need to move large quantities of good we use magic. If there'll only be one, then very well. The letter will suffice there?"
The party manages to locate the inn on a map given to them by Maulia. Passing through the alley the party is stopped by a tattooed woman with several daggers and a sap at her belt. She crosses her arms and says with a sneer. "Hand over your coin. I'll make it easy if you don't resist."
You notice three thugs hiding in the side alleys around you.
Kristleifur looks up at the human, straight at her eyes.
"Nah. Now, shove off. Unless you want our bullets. At high speed."
The gnome's musket is still across his shoulders but can be levelled *very* quickly, the party knows.
The woman sneers and says, ”Bad idea little man.” She raises an open hand before closing it into a fist, then going into a contact stance with a sap drawn.
[color=red]"Yafr wafd uw oaroyuz, sarp!"[/color] Armanus growls menacing in Infernal.
Elsa steps slightly away (5 ft) and casts mage armour, lightning dancing on her finger tips
Erick takes a half step back, out of arms reach, and draws his pistol and fires at the woman!
"More in the alley, two, ten, and nine o'clock! Watch your backs, and make sure eye-patch here goes down messy." He says coldly.
Despite the encumbrance of his coat Zyrel's bow all but manifests in his hands. Even as he nocks an arrow he puts his back to a wall, taking partial cover behind a pile of the debris strewn in the alley by humans.
"Lethal, or non-lethal." he asks calmly, noting the sap in the mugger's hands.
Erick grins. "Well, if we're winning, you can go soft on 'em. If we start losing, or someone draws our blood, slit their gizzards." He shakes the blade of his sword as he draws it and his pistol, the rings making their distinctive 'ching ching' sound. "Short of that, I got no problem with just kicking their kneecaps out from under them."
Elsa winces
My spells don't have a "don't kill" setting. They'll just have to take it. Something I'm not minding.
"Don't say I didn't warn ya!", Kristleifur says with a mixture of sternness and glee, as he grasps his musket, levels it at the first speaker's heart, and squeezes the trigger.
The tiefling was originally going to send the magic missile into the tattooed woman, but after Kristleifur's massive assault, Armanus sends the arcan projectile into one of the thugs in the alleyway.
Zyrel calmly aims at the shoulder of one of their assailants, and lets fly. Evan as the arrow leaves he knocks another.
Elsa tries to fry as many her foes as possible, without hitting her own side.
DC 15 ref for half
Good shot Kris
Erick watches as Kris blows the head off the woman with the eyepatch. With a shrug, he levels his pistol at another robber. "Oh well, guess we're killing them." And then he fires, although the round goes wide.
Kristleifur's bullet strikes the woman, yet she does not fall. However, Elsa's spell strikes the woman, and she falls to the ground, her skin slightly charred. Zyrel's spell hits the thug behind the group, as well as Armanus' magic missle. The thugs charge at the party, attacking Elsa, Armanus, and Erick. One hits Armanus in the stomach, briefly knocking the wind out of him.
Erick leans into the hit, and takes the sap to the forehead, as if it was a joke or something. "Nice, now try mine." He responds, and dropping the pistol, brings the 9 ring sword around in an arc using both hands!
The rings make a merry jingling sound as the blade slams into the man with the sap, sending blood splattering the alleyway!
"Huh! Tougher than she looked! Let's try...YOU!", Kristleifur exclaims as reloads and fires.
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Zyrel calmly lines up his next shot, but notes the saps. "Not necessarily. I believe I could still save her, if these ones stand down."