** spoiler omitted **
As always, Ludger carefully considers possible gambits before deciding on the most appropriate…
Ludger shouts at the top of his lungs, ”wake up Axel, we’ve been robbed!”. Then dressed in just his undergarments Ludger charges from the room looking for the thief. On the way out of the room, Ludger grabs a candlestick to use as a weapon.
Hans had gotten up and put on his trousers. He had been robbed more than once before. It was a danger of being on the road, afterall. But nonetheless he readied his dagger, one hand on the sheathe and the other on the handle. If a thief decided to steal from his room then they’d find a nasty surprise. And yet he was the one surprised, when he heard the voice of one of drinking friends yelling. Without thinking he threw the door open, standing there with naught but pants and a dagger as he looked around for the thief.
He barely awakes, rubbing his face in confusion.
As Ludger begins shouting, you hear a cry of alarm coming from nearby followed by thumping footsteps. The thief has gone to flight!
Grasping his makeshift weapon, Ludger begins to run after the mystery intruder.
Ludger struggles to keep up. In desperation he throws the candlestick at the thief trying to knock the thief down.
Against his better judgement, the merchant ran after the fleeing man. ”Stop, thief!” He yelled out, feeling a professional dislike for anyone who made a living preying off people such as himself.
Scheisse!
Pursuit!
Freeze, or you will get hurt! How do you DARE enter a lady's room by night!
Once again, the diminutive halfling shows deceptive willpower. She wraps herself in the sheets, out of decency, and jumps out of the bed, looking for her dagger
SL 2
If the thief runs away, she pursues him.. but nearly trips herself in the sheets
Ludger collides with the doorframe on his way out, but launches his candlestick at the back of the fleeing thief. It lands with a solid thud.
Magda and Axel both get tripped up in their bedsheets, but Hans jumps out of his door and arrives close on the heels of the thief.
Bodies collide in the darkened & narrow hallway as the thief races down the stairs.
Dazed and panicked, he does little apart from careen off the walls.
Hans, apparently, wasn’t thinking very clearly. Bellowing ”Stop, thief!” he charged after the rapscallion, dagger in hand. If he stopped to think he would have realized how incredibly stupid and dangerous this chase could become….
Well pleased at the success of throwing the candlestick at the fleeing figure, Ludger slows down to pick it up again and tries to hit the thief again.
Even if Magda managed not to trip over the sheets this time, she fails to gain ground on the running thief
The thief agilely leaps over the railing of the stairs leading down to the common room, landing on a table and leaping off without missing a step. Hans follows close on his heels, completing the maneuver without quite so much grace.
Axel & Ludger get tied up on the stairs, colliding into each other and nearly falling headlong down the steps before they catch themselves while Magda races ahead of them.
Instead of heading toward the main door of the inn or the kitchen, he races through an open door into a meeting room. Hans catches a glimpse of an open window ahead.
SL 2
Despite her shorter legs, Magda manages to catch on the thief, a little.
Hans suddenly had a realization. His sides hurt. He was a merchant! By Ranald's teeth, he hadn't run this far in...he didn't even know when. There was only one thing to do...
He's behind but at least not losing significant ground.
Magda races nimbly between the tables, making good use of her small stature to avoid the obstacles in the room. Hans and Axel follow closely behind, but aren't able to maneuver quite as well. Hans finds a mug that was placed on a side table during clean up & throws it into the back of the fleeing felon.
The thief's movements are guided and practiced, as though he knew what would be in the room before he entered. As he dives through the window into the moonlit street outside, he tosses his candle back through the window.
The candle bounces off the windowsill and spins outside after him.
Has was a fairly large man, even if much of it was fat. But still, he was able to put forth a burst of energy to charge after the thief, completely ready to barrel into the man and to hold him down.
"Please sir! Don't hurt me! I didn't mean nothing by it, honest. I didn't take anything from ye!"
Why were you in our rooms, if not to steal?
Axel arrives confused and angry...
What the hells were you about?, bare feet on cold cobbles not lessening the heat of his outrage.
Keeping his knife at the man’s throat, Hans used his free hand to pull free whatever it was the thief had tried to hide in the cobblestones. ”Don’t move. I’m licensed in my guild. If I tell the watch that I killed you in self defense there’ll be enough pull that nobody will ask any questions.”
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Ludger looks out through the window and see that his friends have caught the scoundrel. Ludger catches up to the group in time to hear the conversation between Hans and the the thief.
Ludger isn’t able to decide if the thief is telling the truth or not.
The thief whimpers when Hans threatens him, but he stays still as Hans fishes out a small key from the cobblestones in the street. Holding it up to the light, it looks like one of the room keys you were given for the Carved Crown.
"I was just looking! Didn't mean no harm!" he protests to Magda & Axel. Without moving. Staying very still.
He sounds like he's telling the truth but how the devil did he get that key?
He thinks, face creasing with effort, trying to formulate a thought.
I mean... Is it possible our potential employer gave him the key? He paid for the rooms after all, and if they have what we have? No need to share in the profits...
Hans chewed on his lip. He didn't like this...any of this. He didn't have enough information and he was starting to feel cold. "Well, it's your room. Your decision on what to do with him." He said.
Hans chewed on his lip. He didn't like this...any of this. He didn't have enough information and he was starting to feel cold. "Well, it's your room. Your decision on what to do with him." He said.
”Maybe a sound thrashing will loosen this scoundrels tongue,” Ludger says in his most threatening voice.
Being dressed only in his underwear, Ludger doesn’t present as a very intimidating guy.
The door to the Carved Crown opens and the innkeeper peers outside. "What are you lot doing out here?" he asks. "It's the dead of night..."
When he sees that you are detaining a man on the ground, he grimaces. "Bring him in here. You'll draw attention we don't want. And yer not decent."
Good sense spoken at last, says Axel acutely aware of the cold and painful feet on bare cobblestone.
He helps drag him in.
Ludger continues making threats of inflicting bodily harm on the would be robber as he follows the rest inside.
The innkeeper keeps the door open as you haul your prisoner back into the inn before going to fetch a lamp for you to see by in the darkened common room. He looks anxious for you to not disturb the other guests. The thief doesn't offer much resistance.
Axel, far from the hard man turns to Ludger and whispers How do we do this?
He then considers questions to ask the innkeeper.
Axel, far from the hard man turns to Ludger and whispers How do we do this?
He then considers questions to ask the innkeeper.
Ludger shrugs at Axel. "Do you have any abilities to make him talk?" Ludger says in a whisper while making what he considers are mystical movements with his hand.
A quick search of the man & your rooms suggests that he is being honest in at least one sense: he doesn't appear to have taken anything from you. He doesn't have any coin on him and a quick search of your rooms doesn't reveal anything missing. Your things were definitely looked through though, including the shipping manifests in Magda's bags.
A quick search of the man & your rooms suggests that he is being honest in at least one sense: he doesn't appear to have taken anything from you. He doesn't have any coin on him and a quick search of your rooms doesn't reveal anything missing. Your things were definitely looked through though, including the shipping manifests in Magda's bags.
”Alright then, you obviously searched our stuff. Why? A weasel like you wouldn’t do that on his own. You’re going to tell us why or I’m going to take a pair of pliers and pull your teeth out one at a time until you decide too talk…understand? Ludger is fairly satisfied with the threat and really hopes it’ll work because he doesn’t have pliers and he’d never actually torture anyone.
Hans could smell an opportunity, and this was one. This group had something profitable going on, and he wanted to know what it was. Realizing that nobody had told him to leave, he kept quiet and listened, eager to find out what was going down.
He's the son of the Steveadore boss! Don't make him make you disappear!, he hisses.
Not sure if that works for aid another.
He then puts his arm around the innkeeper and leads him away, the thieves key in hand...
Sooooo..let's leave that ugliness behind and uninterrupted. Let's talk about this key... do you have any room keys missing? We'll look at this one in a minute but the question of how he has such a key SHOULD be investigated, and quietly is probably best.
The man's cowardly nature bends under Ludger's violent threats. "Well, yeah, Slippery 'Pe asked me to. And someone asked him I'd guess. We don't know who wants what...just that people ask and they has clanks to pass around." Sensing that wouldn't be enough to appease the stevedore, he babbled out. "They didn't say what to look for, just what was up with yees."
The innkeeper is nearby still and pipes in. "In't a surprise really. You lot sure stood out tonight with all that bravado. Look, no offense but none of ye are dressed proper for an inn like this, and were acting out. The folks that come to my inn are just as cutthroat as beggars & thieves, 'cept with less knives--usually--but what they want isn't the same. They have plenty of coins & don't need what you lot have on you. What they'd want is to know what you do."
When Axel questions the innkeeper about the key, he frowns at it thoughtfully. "This is one of ours, sure enough. One of the maids lost hers a few months back...thought it went into the ash heap or something. Whose room did you say he got into? The missing key was for the room we gave you."
He was in my room, but I don't know what he expected to steal from me. I'm not rich.
When Axel questions the innkeeper about the key, he frowns at it thoughtfully. "This is one of ours, sure enough. One of the maids lost hers a few months back...thought it went into the ash heap or something. Whose room did you say he got into? The missing key was for the room we gave you."
Well we are digging into that but it appears to be both rooms that we had assigned to us. Would the same key work on both rooms?
”Who is this slippery ‘pe and where do we find ‘em? I’d like to have a word or two with them,” Ludger growls in his most threatening tone.
"I didn't steal nothin'. Was just lookin' like I said. Lookin' don't do no harm," the thief protests to Magda.
When Ludger asks him how to find Slippery 'Pe, he just shrugs. "I don't go lookin for 'Pe. He finds me when he wants, ya?"
Axel asks about the keys and the innkeeper sighs. "It shouldn't work, but I doubt we ever tried using the wrong key for the doors. You could try it, I suppose. Might explain a lot."
I'll go try... locksmith might have sought to cut a few corners, before heading back to the rooms.