"I feel wonderful - Full Speed!" She declares, sipping her coffee "My Pops is competent here - Got a whole family to looks after" Vurna counters to Bardok's attempt to repel her . She turns to Rose now "Didn't expect this from you!" looking a little wounded in her pride "Surely I am not an expert on the city I have lived in for - relatively speaking - thousands of years! - I can take you right there, and can handle my own!" Defending her honor now !
She is not lying about her navigational skills, but may be embellishing her ability to "handle" herself a wee bit...
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Three choices. Two are Here (scroll to near the bottom).
If neither of those are something you are interested in, feel free to ask me a question about one Person or Place, as if rolling a success on a Recall Knowledge check.
So, Bonuses or Info!
Which?
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Rose starts to backpedal with Vurna, "I'm not saying you don't know the city, I'm saying you need to make sure you can recuperate and not exacerbate any potentially lingering disease. I mean are you sure you are up to swinging a weapon if it comes to it. Speaking of which, I haven't seen you carrying a weapon, are you trained in any? Care to show us before we take you into potentially life threatening situations? Allows us to better know how to help you if it comes to it."
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Helène catches Rose's look and walks beside her on the way home. "It was a gamble, but it seemed to pay off. This isn't actually the first time that I distracted someone from looking at a contract properly. I'm not proud of my past, but it's taught me some skills that still come of use - hopefully for Good, this time around."
--
Helène's mood sours at their failure to build the raft, once again. She doesn't go near the pile of broken bits for a while and takes Kunsheng's word at face value. "I hope a few of them can swim," she says with a grim smile. "Or maybe they can hang on to the edges of the raft, if we ever get it built." She sets her jaw. "We'll need some time to do this, though. Tomorrow morning it has to be done."
--
Listening from the edge of the room, Helène follows the discussion between Bardok, Rose and Vurna. She takes a cue from Rose and tries to weigh in. "Vurna, we've been in the city for a few days and I think we'll manage by now. And Rose makes a good point. It was only yesterday that we had to face an ambush by assassins." She tries to put some extra menace in her voice at the word. "But you could be valuable here: If you stay on the lookout and come for us right away if there's any trouble at the inn?" It's been quiet her for a few days, but that at least will give the girl the idea she's contributing in some way.
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Helène would like to make some inquiries from the local citizens regarding the Emerald Guardhouse, under the pretense of asking for directions. "Is it over there you say? A big building, or small? Many people stationed there? What's their main function?"
Vurna is a good sport about it - she takes rejection in stride, explaining that being bed-ridden for so many days has made her stir crazy, as she lusts for adventure! She suddenly remembers "Oh, I almost forgot!" She pulls a Guard Uniform out of the bag she had packed to go "Maybe this will come in handy?" and wishes the PCs luck.
Iris strides into the office and gives a melodramatic cry of anguish, almost posing as if she were to faint. "Oh, guards people, I have dropped my beloved great-grandmother's rose shaped-broach. Can you help me look for it? Or has something like that been turned in?"...
The guard at the desk gives Iris a look. She says "Rose-shaped borach. Right. Look lady, you're gunna come here and waste my time, we're gunna take ya in to stay the night. You want that? Didn't think so. Now stop wasting my time and get outta here!"
Helène spends two hours canvassing the streets trying to ascertain the size and function of the Emerald Guardhouse asking questions like "Is it over there you say? A big building, or small? Many people stationed there? What's their main function?"...
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Your information gives you exact directions. Coupled with Vurna's tips, you can roll Navigation twice, take the best result, and automatically improve your success by one step, to arrive at the Guardhouse wasting little time.
Zamp saves the guard uniform and disguise kit for Rose, in case anything goes wrong.
Always have a backup plan. I hope she's okay in there!
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Rose waits for people to be ready before heading in.
Iris blanches some as the guard threatens to keep her for the night. "Fine! I guess I can look elsewhere! My poor poor grandmother's brooch. She must be roiling in her grave right now... but if it's too much work I can go a look on my own." With that she gives one last look around the place, a fake tear welling up at the corners of her eye, before she turns and leaves.
She steps back out onto the streets and tries to break into 'tears,' steeping into an alleyway to collect herself again.
Rose manages to carry her failed "grandmother's broach" bit back outside without further incident, but blowing her cover - all that time arranging an outfit and applying perfect make-up wasted!...
As Rose rejoins, the PCs decide to canvass the neighborhood for two hours outside of the Military Facility in the surrounding neighborhood...
In addition to the information in the success entry, the PC learns that Ellvard recently sold a painting that is rumored to have been a forgery that he acquired for far less.
The PC knows Ellvard is a guard who frequently works the docks and has been known to accept bribes.
...
The party takes two hours to Gather Information first, seemingly coming up short. They re-convene a block or two from the Guardhouse, and decide their next move. The columns of this wide building are carved in the likeness of Runelord Belimarius. Its wide courtyard is filled with practice dummies and other evidence of martial training. Guards - like the ones the PCs ran into the previosu night - are beginning and ending their shifts. A short line has formed outside the door of a recruiting area, where a guard stands stationed.
Time: 12:00 pm, Day Three, five hours until Curfew
...
If there's a recruiting area, perhaps we can get in by pretending to be recruits who were recommended by Garrla.
Shopping the name "Garrla" around, you discover zero hits, not only as connecting it to the Guardhouse, but even at all. Seems nobody knows anyone by the name "Garrla"!
Bardok soon realizes that the guards all look to be wearing roughly the same armor and uniform, all buzzing around the complex with this business or that. Even the recruits - all standing in line waiting to make an appointment - look to be of similar fashion. Many of them appear to be around the same age too: Young adults.
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"I like the idea in theory, Zamp," Helène considers, "but it seems like we'll stick out like a sore thumb."
She frowns tries to make sense out of what she heard. "I haven't been able to find anyone who could confirm that a 'Garrla' works at the Emerald Guardhouse. Maybe it's a code word? I did overhear some rumours about a guard that has been known to accept bribes. He might be a good first point of contact. If things go sideways and the whole thing was a set-up, we might be able to buy our way out of it."
She rubs her hands together as she forms a plan. "How about this? The guard - Ellvard - frequently works at the docks. We go in and ask to see him first, claim we've seen some disturbing things down by the docks that we'd like to report, and we were referred to him. The upside is that we can keep our cover or merchants, and that we can all go in as a group. We were all witnesses to the 'event', after all. Once we meet him, we'll ask for Garrla. And then we see what happens."
Helène takes the lead, and, with perhaps proportionate paranoia only after great deliberation, the PCs follow into the belly of the Emerald Guardhouse, bypassing the recruitment line, and up to the reporting booth. She proceeds to share the clever fiction: That she and her merchant friends were referred to Ellvard to report an 'event' that they witnessed at the Docks!
The person manning the booth begins to write down what Helène says, and leaning back, asks her coworker "if Ellvard is in today?" to which he says back "I'll go check" walking off. The clerk says back to Helène:...
...
I am open to creative uses of Aid here:
1) Describe a scenario
2) Justify rolling a skill check based on that scenario
3) If multiple PCs succeed, I will improve the circumstance bonus to Aid by 1 per additional success!
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Rose contemplates changing disguises as everyone else gathers information but ultimately decides to stay in the one she prepared for today. She follows the rest of the group into the guard house, and up to the receptionist, a clearly disgruntled look on her face.
She then sees the guards taking Helene's request at face value and then gives a spurt of shock and exasperation. She walks up to the table and angrily starts. "OH sure you'll take her statements, but when I come in looking for a lost family heirloom you brush me off like a sack of potatoes! Geez what kind of place are you running here? I ought to...." She continues in this vein for a moment or three giving Helene sometime to think of exactly what she wants to say.
Zamp will wait and see what happens.
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"Good afternoon, good officer," Helène says. "Thank you for taking the time, because I wouldn't bother you for something I had most likely simply misplaced." She shoots Rose a fake smirk, then focuses all her attention on the clerk.
"I really hope he is in. We saw some men at the docks unloading crates. When one of them complained that they were heavier than they looked, the other gave him a warning glance first, then a knowing wink. 'You're getting weak if you can't even carry a crate filled with nothing but clothing', he said. And I'm not even exaggerating the emphasis, they were surely sharing a joke." She gives the clerk her most honest look. "I don't want to think about what was really in those crates. Even if it's nothing dangerous, smuggling like that hurts everyone's business - including ours - so we thought it best to report it here. And I've heard it said that Ellvard is the most appropriate one to report this to." That might make it more believable for us to report this, instead of looking the other way, as outsiders. We're simply trying to get rid of some competition...
"Guards!" the woman calls, shaking her wrist handily at Rose "Please escort this woman off the premises!" adding "If I wasn't busy with Legitimate Business, you'd be charged with Obstruction - do not show your face here again!" the veins in her neck pulse while she yells at the imposter, but amazingly, with a single turn, she switches tack from "bad guard" to "good guard" and now gives Helène her full attention...
...She scribbles a few more notes, then clears her throat, handing Helène a very thick stack of loosely organized empty forms lashed together and a quill "We thank you for your forthright prudence - the undermarkets here cheat the common citizen their due taxes, diligently monitored by the Ministry under her Green Majesty to ensure the commonwealth of this fine city, not to mention disrupt legitimate trade, and if it weren't for fine folks such as yourselves..." She takes a moment to lock eyes with each of the other members in the party "...We wouldn't be able to live half as safely and thus prosperously as we do!" And with that, the woman grabs five more equally sized stacks of matching forms, and hands them to each of the party members with quills, and continues "If you each wouldn't mind recording what you say at separate tables" She indicates six tables each with blinders nearly surrounding it such that what texts sat on one table would be blocked from view from any other "Form B, Section U, then Box R on the next page, follow the instructions in appendices D and E, and don't forget packet N..." continuing on for several minutes with directions on how to fill out the stacks completely completely...
...Escorted outside by the shoulder, the moment they are clear of the inside, the guard gives Rose a look that she can't quite pin! She rules out several possibilities in her head:
1) It's not the look of disdain an agent might cast upon their "perp"
2) It's not an amorous look which Rose is accustomed to shedding off
3) But it's also not quite the look of recognition shared between expectant parties
And though Rose can surely rule these out, she has to admit the look shared the most in common with the third. In either case, and complicating the matter, the guard, instead of "tossing" her into the street, instead walks her over to the back of the recruitment line, and surprises Rose with the following words: "Please wait for your Time and Place" Emphasizing those two words strangely, and with that, the woman spins on her booted heels, and proceeds back into the compound. The two people in front of Rose in line roll their eyes and shake their heads, apparently frustrated that Rose thought she could Cut in front! So Rude!!
...
...
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Rose grumps as she gets escorted from the building, but the last moment of Time and Place, seems to give her pause and she then gets in line for the recruitment. Might see where this was going to go, and she had a good story under her belt if it proved to be just her imagination... She also didn't have much better to be doing today.
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Bardok looks over the forms, his brow furrowed. ...is it me, or do the sections we need to complete spell 'BURDEN'?
He scratches his head, then puts "Bar across the street from the Rockfish Inn" as his address and "5pm" as his date of birth. He completes the rest of his forms as best he can. If it's a mistake I can chalk it up to misunderstanding the form.
Perhaps ready to tear their hair out - the PCs somehow power through the mountain of paperwork - at varying degrees of fidelity to the process - when finally, they seem to be upon the home stretch!...
...Meanwhile - just as Rose is nearing the front of her line - a man is being dragged kicking and screaming into the complex by two and a half guards. He flails wildly, but seems unable to escape, threatened at crossbow point by the third guard. The recruits in line seem to pretend as if nothing is happening - perhaps suddenly brooking into random conversation about the weather - as the man is dragged all the way across the courtyard, and into the back, now out of sight...
...Rose makes it to the front of her line, and is asked the following question to a man waiting - quill in hand - to write down her answer: "Why do you want to join the Emerald Guard?" He speaks the words without mirth, instead, they churn out of his mouth with a degree of automation, his eyes seemingly looking past Rose as she prepares to verbalize her answer, as if waiting for the minute hand to finally catch up to the hour hand on a distant clock...
...Eventually, it seems the PCs finish all at once, as six bodies rise from their scattered tables, and move back to the desk with the clerk from whom they were assigned such a massive load. Some are dizzied from the 47 minutes spent thinking - others begin to cramp in their fingers from the time spent writing - the sensation of being "processed" altogether some strange and inexplicable BURDEN. And yet, triumphantly, the completely completed paperwork exchanges hands back across the desk...
...Just then, before the PCs can open their mouths to speak, a quiet stills across the yard. Three soldiers are now dragging a limp body with protruding crossbow bolts back across the courtyard in the opposite direction that one came in. In the same moment, the man who had left earlier to "look for Ellvard" returns, reporting "Ellvard's not in, not taking appointments, and not taking messages." to which the other nods and says to the PCs "So, Ellvard's not in, not taking appointments, and not taking messages. But, you're Claim has been Filed, and Due Process has begun!" She takes the paper stacks, and, standing up to obtain proper leverage to manage the sheer weight, lays them out across her desk, smashes the top of each one with a rubber stamp, and stacking them up, hands them over to the same assistant, who disappears with them. Dismissively, she asks "Anything else I can help you with today?" smiling with perhaps the most disingenuous smile you have ever seen in your life!
...
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Rose looks the guard over and decides to take the risk, pushing the issue and acting as if she could continue talking for a long, long time, and make the guard's wait even longer. "I felt there are areas that the guards are lacking in and that I might be able to help shore them up. I can list them if you like."
"Garrla? There is no one here by that name." Then without hardly skipping a beat, a perfect copy of tone and inflection "Anything else I can help you with today?" with that same smile...
Rose is 100% certain the man actually wrote down what she said without even thinking - an automatic gesture. He points to another line "Good answer. You can schedule a formal interview in that line over there." Then to the person behind Rose "Next!"... Rose estimates this line - shorter at least - will take only minutes to get through...
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The same guard who escorted Rose from the compound seems to perk an ear at the mention of the name Imiriax spoke...
...
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Helène, whose nerves are already frayed from the paperwork and the bureaucrazy they've had to deal with, is horrified at the scene they've (almost) witnessed. Spots of colour go to her cheek and she sets her jaw to prevent herself from doing anything stupid. Through gritted teeth, she whispers to the others. "We have to leave. Now! All of us," she adds, referring to Rose. We'll have to drag her out of the line when we leave, I suppose. Or at least let her know that she has to bail.
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Bardok eyes the reaction of the guard who led Rose away. He waves to get her attention. "Excuse me, can you help me? I just realized I made a mistake on my form. I accidentally put the Rockfish Inn as my home address, but that's just where I'm staying during my sanctioned visit here. I'd have to leave the city to get to my real home, and I'd hate to have a guard show up tonight at sundown because of the confusion. Any way you can get my papers out of here before the other guards process them?"
Halfway through the line, Rose is given a question Questionaire which it seems she is expected to fill out while she waits in this second (and final?) line...
The woman walks over to Bardok sternfaced, and says "I'm confident Bureaucretia can assist you in correcting your errors" she looks over to her coworker "It's a good Time for recruiting in this Place, is it not?" emphasizing the two words. Her coworker cuts in "Thanks Kallade" as the soldier returns to her post, the clerk says to Bardok again "I'll make a note of it" writing something on a random parchment "Anything else I can help you with today?" returning to her infallible smile!
The people in line behind the PCs are becoming noticeably agitated, and look nearly about to voice their displeasure...
There is a crumpled piece of paper on the ground near where Bardok was standing!
The soldier "secretly" dropped a crumpled piece of paper on the ground near where Bardok and her were talking while they were doing so!
...