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"If they've got a f&@$ing map, we need one too!" Royken tells Vivielle. "We can't go in blind, like a f~@+ing halfling wandering into a red dragon's den."
Vivielle sighs. "Oh, very well! But if you somehow turn this around on me, I will find you and make you suffer for your betrayal," the dwarf warns you. She finally relents, providing you with a full map of the complex.
Lora looks over the map and the lovely 'other' entrance. One she was never forget at this point. "How secure is that? Are there traps in place?"
"Yeah, if they know about that, that's how they're coming in," Royken growls. "Does your f&&#ing bartender know, though, that's the question? And if you think he doesn't, how sure are you?"
He ponders. "I can add a trap there. But if we want to station ourselves there, we're going to be pretty f~*~ing far from the rest of this place if anything happens."
"My bartender doesn't know anything else, I'd bet his life on it. We can't push anymore without potentially spoiling him." she thinks "I can watch the floor, while the rest of you hide in here." Lora doesn't seem to want to pass up the chance to join in on the party.
"That trap door is my secret I am trusting you with," Vivielle says sourly. "Nobody else knows about it. And that is how I will be escaping if you fail in your task of stopping this robbery!"
Bleach inspects the map as well and notes the limited amount of places where the burglars might enter from. Said limited possibilities make him wonder if the bandits have something magical planned. A simple spell of invisibility should buy them enough time to push on through inside, get into position, and kick things off. The wizard rubs his head, but it doesn't make the doubts and fears go away.
"Yes, Hadi can stay with you. He can also converse with other cats. Not that I expect that kind of kitten to be frolicking about in this place ..."
"That kind of kitten? What other kind are you referring to, dear Bleach?" Lora tone is an amused tease. But she seems rather happy to have Hadi with her.
"Perhaps we can get some other f*%$ing felines in here to be our spies, right?" Royken suggests. "They can smell any rats that come in, even if we don't see them. Maybe f+&*ing hear better than we do too."
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"Eh, ahem, I meant domesticated housecats, of course ..."
Vivielle's words rub Eva the wrong way. "Look, no disrespect, Miss, but you have not hired us to do a task for you... we are here because it aligns with our personal goals that this robbery doesn't happen."
"We'll do all we can to stop it, but remember that if it was not for us you'd be clueless about this whole thing. If this still goes back, it will be despite our best efforts, not because we failed." She says. "If you don't agree with that, you can call the shieldmarshals instead... though I believe they'd sooner help the robbers than you."
"Very well. Now, I would ask you focus on the task at hand," Vivielle says with a dismissive wave.
***
As the evening approaches, Lora lingers in the common area of the Steaming Kingdom while the rest of you conceal yourselves in the private suite. Everything proceeds as normal for the first few hours. Patrons come in to drink, watch the entertainment, and soak in the baths.
However, the sound of gunshots suddenly throws the night into disarray! The guard at the front door staggers back into the common area and falls as four men and women in gold-colored clothes burst into the room! They grab some patrons to use as human shields as the other scream and look for places to hide. The dwarven bartender produces a scattergun from beneath the bar and fires on the nearest of the Steaming Kingdom's guards.
Lora notes two men who had been playing darts have now moved to kick open the kitchen door. They hurl thunderstones into the room beyond!
Royken untenses ever so slightly. Finally knowing that their enemies were going to be attempting a frontal assault removes some of the stress -- assuming it's not just a distraction.
He cocks his own gun, aiming it toward the door. "Come on, you f$*%ers," he says, mostly to himself. "Let's get this over with."
Eva quickly moves besides the door to hide, her arm crackling with electricity. "Let them come and gather... then I'll bolt all of them. Keep 15ft away from me, ok?"
Royken moves away from Eva.
The red head in a daring party dress screams as the violence erupts around her, then quickly tries to cower behind a table, joining a terrified couple of customers already there.
Bleach weaves a protective illusion over Eva and then takes cover himself. "Give me a moment and I'll summon a fiddler." He refuses to elaborate further.
Lora watches as the Gilded Gunners engage in a shoot-out with the guards in the common room and the kitchen. The rest of you make preparations as you hold your positions.
After a few seconds, the secret door to the private suite opens up. However, those of you in there do not see anybody enter the room...
"Something's there!" Royken growls, trying to find it.
Bleach looks for that which isn't there to be seen.
The bombs on the door explode, showering the area with icy rain! A pair of cries come from within the ice, indicating the presence of invisible creatures.
Bleach struggles to pinpoint their location, but Royken narrows down that they are just inside the room, adjacent to each other.
Bleach draws an innocent-looking flask and throws it at where their foes might be.
HP 107/107
AC 25
Fort +14, Ref +14, Will +12 (bravery)
Hero points: 3
Ammo: 47 rounds
Effects:
"They're right f$$+ing there!" he curses, blasting them with his scattergun to make sure Bleach gets the point.
Lora will quietly and slowly move to a place where she might be behind a group of the gunners, hopefully still behind cover herself.
Cursing that the thugs used the entrance Vivielle had assured them was secret, the bolts towards the room, her arm crackling with electricity. She passes Royken and the punches the wall, releasing an explosion of electricity all around her.
There are more cries of pain as Bleach's alchemist's fire splashes the invisible attackers. Royken's blast misses his target, but Eva's lightning crackles and injures those around her.
Suddenly, two Gilded Gunners appear flanking the inventor! One has minor burns, but the second one is significantly more injured. They stab at Eva with their daggers.
Meanwhile, Lora goes unnoticed as the other Gilded Gunners continue to wildly exchange gunfire with the guards and a few of the braver patrons.
"That was a big mistake!" Eva says as she cranks her arm and punches the thugs, starting with the more injured one.
HP 107/107
AC 25
Fort +14, Ref +14, Will +12 (bravery)
Hero points: 3
Ammo: 47 rounds
Effects:
Royken charges toward the two thugs flanking Eva, gun swinging.
Bleach reaches for the ground and hastily draws a profane symbol on the ground. While giving the finishing touches to the symbol, he incants a prayer in Necril and the symbol lights up and then goes dark. Out of nowhere, a wight appears. It immediately jumps at one of Eva's assailants!
The scantily clad red head starts singing behind an overturned table, then suddenly twisting terror erupts into the nearest gunners. Bad singing one guesses.
Eva pummels the more wounded of the two would-be safecrackers, and with a groan, he falls at her feet! Bleach summons a wight which lands a solid hit, then Royken charges in and pummels the other thief and knocks him away!
Lora unleashes a powerful fear spell, temporarily terrifying the other Gilded Gunners in the main room! Seizing the advantage, the guards press their attack, and one of the Gunners goes down. The others continue to seek cover and exchange gunfire.
The remaining safecracker backs himself into a corner to avoid being flanked. He draws his dueling pistol and fires desperately at Eva.
The wight jumps at the safecracker with reckless abandon. It smells life. It wants to taste life. That, and after the shot the safecracker fired, Bleach had told it to feast on the man. "Idiot. Had you simply surrendered, you'd have lived ..."
Bleach catches the safecracker square in the face with his ray of frost. As the man screams in agony, the wight falls upon him, taking him down.
The rest of you move to support the Steaming Kingdom's guards against the remaining Gilded Gunners. When they see you emerging from the secret rooms, though, they quickly realize that their safecrackers have been dispatched and their plan to rob the place has failed! They beat a fighting retreat.
Royken grunts.
"See? Told you we'd f&#*ing sort it," he growls to Vivielle.
"Better let Foebe know. Looks like Mugland's going to be right where we want him, so hopefully we can go take care of that fig-pucker and be done with all of this."
As the gunners started to fun, Lora managed to get in their way enough for the bandits to ram right into her, making a pile of limbs and Ouches, unfortunately the red hair was part of that pile.
But it delayed them enough for the others to surround the thugs, causing them to surrender.
"A job well down, I think." she stands and adjusts her dress to make it less revealing, since the tumbling on the floor had done bad things to it. "Vivielle, I believe our assistance has helped just a bit, but you should look into who might have babbled your secret about your secret. I assume the next time we show up, we'll be treated as respected guests? Instead of put upons?" Lora loves the idea of coming to enjoy this place properly some time. Drinks with a busty inventor, steaks with a rough and rowdy dwarf, and maybe more talks about Kittens with a brilliant mage.
Somewhat out of breath, Eva joins the others on the main hall, twitching a bit as her own arm gives her a small shock. While certain not that wounded, she is bleeding from more than one wound. Sitting on a bench, she addresses her arm while giving Vivielle an "I told you so" look.
Lora settles down next to the wounded woman "You see to that and I'll see to these." referring to her arm and her bleeding parts. She sings a ballad of bawdy romance with many puns.
"Of course. You will always be welcome here at the Steaming Kingdom," Vivielle says with a smile. Her staff moves to clean up the mess left behind by the shoot-out. Soon enough, it's business at usual at the nightclub and spa...
Interrogating the Gilded Gunners quickly causes them to give up the location of their gang's hideout. You figure you have about an hour or so before the gang's leader, Sabora Sharkosa, realizes that the heist has been foiled. That gives you just a short time to rest if you want to strike the Gilded Gunners while the iron is hot!
After the Gunners have answered some of their questions, Eva adds some more. "Right, so how many of you there will be at your hideout and how well do you know each other? Do you have a pin, or badge, or whatever to show each other that you are members of the gang? Is there a password to enter the place without trouble?"
An unassuming workshop operated during the day by one of Sharkosa’s trusted minions obscures the entrance to the Gilded Halls. Since it is night, the smithy should be unattended. A trapdoor beneath a dusty carpet provides the only entrance and exit to the hideout. The trapdoor rings alarms throughout the complex if not disarmed before opening it.
Sharkosa committed about half of her forces to the attack on the Steaming Kingdom. There will likely only be about a half-dozen or so other gang members in the hideout. The gang is small enough that they recognize each other by sight, so deception will be difficult.
"And where's Mugland? We don't really care about you lot, but that f@*%er has to pay for what he's done. Hells, we'll even agree to a deal if you turn him over."
The Gunners tell you Mugland is hiding out in the Gilded Halls, under Sharkosa's protection. You'll have to go through her to get to him.
Royken growls, clearly indicating that she's making a damn fool choice, but so be it.
Bleach feels Royken's frustration and, for once, voices his. "Idiocy breeds idiocy, and Alkenstar has a plethora of special fertilizers in store to ensure that its abundance of idiocy never will grow scarce. Poverty, the normalization of violence, you know, the list goes on and on. Maybe this place isn't that much different than Geb after all ..."
But it is. It is very different indeed.
Lora calls Bleach's plan Brilliantly straightforward, if he voices it of course. She leaves the interrogation to the others while she enjoys the party a little, missing the swirling chaos of a club, and all the chattering little secrets all about.
Sighing she gathers a concealed holster, though she prefers the aesthetics of a pistol on the hip more than the benefit for surprise the concealed one gives her. Also one of those Lovely silencers.
You make your way to the smithy that hides the entrance to the Gilded Halls. Lora finds the hidden catch on the trapdoor that disables the alarm, and you creep down the ladder and into the hideout of the Gilded Gunners.
This chamber’s stone walls appear clean and show signs of recent repair. A bas‑relief in the south wall depicts a pair of crossed pistols, each with a handle resembling a stylized letter S. The pistols are painted in vivid colors and glint with the luster of gold. Reinforced wooden doors are set into the east and south walls.
"I can open these f&&#ing doors with a boom, but that might defeat the point of silencing the alarm," Royken growls. "One of you might do a better job with it..."
Bleach looks at Royken with disbelief before realizing the dwarf musn't be talking about him. "Let's prepare a plan before we rush on in wide-eyed stupid? I got some sulfur bombs, smokesticks, and I can summon an undead minion. So, depending on how big the room beyond is, I can drop a skeletal fiddler amidst our foes and force them to either deal with the musical bastard, or dance to his - admittedly - catchy tunes."
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After Bleach explains the power of a plan to Roykin, he hears a click over his shoulder drawing his eye to see Lora kneeling in front of the southern door, with her picks in the keyhole. "Are you ready with your fiddle, dear Bly'gha?" almost getting the inflection of his name right. She is close though, very close.
A hall past the south door leads into a well-lit room. A large table with padded chairs fills the center of the room. The walls are decorated with paintings depicting calming pastoral scenes. A carved wooden sideboard on the western wall bears small golden sculptures. Doors in the west, south, and east walls each display a symbol of gold inlaid in the reinforced wood.
Several statues on the sideboard represent Sharkosa’s efforts to add gold to other artists’ work. A bronze sculpture of a mother and child with gold accents is worth 15 gp; a fully gilded marble sculpture of a rearing gold dragon is worth 50 gp. The cabinets also contain glassware and serving trays—all decorated with gold filigree—worth 35 gp.
Searching the doors, Lora discovers a glyph on the doorjamb indicating a magical trap. With a heroic effort, she disables the glyph and neutralizes the trap. However, it turns out the south door is false, opening onto a blank wall.
Your choice of exits is now west or east.