City Watch

[Scow2]

"Cool it, Gav," the rooftop cat snarks to the new recruit, followed by some audible conversations on the top story (It's impossible to distinguish what's being said with any clarity.)

The cat's nerves seem to fail at John Tarrant's persuasive threat, starting to drop the crossbow. However, he quickly re-aims it at Tarrant, and speaks shakily. "Negative... sir!" He replies shakily, trying to put on a bold face. "You can't reach me, and there are more of us in here!"

Another, unarmed catfolk looks out one of the neighboring windows, "What? Gavin's down there?" he asks, somewhat confused. "Hey Gavin! Can you do any cool magic?"

[The_JJ]

Gav's snarl catches a bit, then he raises a hand and offer's a wave. Oh, hai guys. Uh, I guess I can, well... he shifts has stance a bit and then mutters a few odd words.

Four lights, two red, two blue appear in the air over the watchemn in the street, slowly rotating around each other, to cast alternating glows into the windows of the building. I'm afraid this is a Watch House guys, and uh, Gav gestures at the muscle behind him, I think it'd be best if everyone maybe calmed down.

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Lawl. Dancing Lights. Does Gav know anyone's names?

[Ajadea]

Razuri shrugs and seems to sneeze. A rather painful-looking moment later, a nearly six foot tall bipedal wolf is standing right behind Gav, all scruffy brindled fur and lean muscle. "I suggest you listen to Captain Tarrant." he says, his voice quite a bit gruffer than it is when he is in his elven form. He looks slightly angry, though that might just be the fur in his eyes.

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Aid Another on the Intimidate: (1d20)[20]+whatever bonus being a six foot tall werewolf gives.

[Scow2]

The catfolk applaud the magical performance, then look down at the others. "Sorry doggy, but you're barking up the wrong tree," the crossbow-carrying cat says, before turning back to someone in the room. One muffled conversation later (Regulus would recognize from the few snippets he can catch it's in Gnoll), he looks back. "Our gang leader is willing to negotiate property disputes, Sir!" The primary feline says.

About a minute later, and an angry outburst in feline*, the door opens. The resident's haven't been taking very good care of the place... It smells of cat and hyena piss, and a lot of other foul scents. Like every other watch house, it's only 20 feet square, with a staircase in the upper left corner (From the door) of the room. Inside, there are six more gnolls, each armed with battleaxes, the largest sitting in the re-located Captain's chair, while a dozen catfolk stand wary, except one female, who's fiddling with her backward and inside-out shirt.


*Gav

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"Dammit Trrissa, get a *** shirt on! City Watch is busting in here, and we don't need an indecent exposure charge!

[Toliudar]

Dirk

Dirk hangs back from entering for a moment, deterred by the smell. Settling a hand on the butt of his truncheon, though, he steps in, smiling as cheerfully as he can, and steps to one side of the door.

"Thanks ever so much for your hospitality, ladies and sirs."

[The_JJ]

Gav coughs and averts his gaze shyly.

[Ajadea]

Razuri puts a paw over his sensitive nose and makes a noise that sounds like a cross between a whimper and a groan.

[Tyrael]

Teevo scuttles in behind the rest of the Watch, still doing his best to appear Totally Harmless, a role which he is in fact rather good at. His orange eyes appear magnified through his goggles to the point where an owl would appear squinting in comparison.

[Xealot7]

Watch Captain, Sergeant John Tarrant

"Like Lance-Constable Oscar said, this is a Watch Headquarters. You all have to vacate the premises. Immediately." John scans the crowd trying to get a feel and see if anyone is getting ready to make a move.

Sense Motive: (1d20+10)[15]

[Scow2]

The leader of the gang contemplates the command, noting the armed watch. "If you insist," she smirks, standing up. "Okay, gang. Get your stuff quickly and move out. Also, Trrissa, you're shirt's on wrong" she commands quickly. While the felines grumble at the command, the other gnolls just snicker, dispersing throughout the watchhouse to follow orders to the letter, and leaving with rather few items, scattering throughout the district.

John Tarrant

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You don't sense any outright hostility (or at no more hostility than is default for any Gnoll that doesn't want to kill you), but you do sense there's something going on at your expense

[Toliudar]

Dirk

Uh oh.

"Well, that's very...neighbourly...of you. Have a nice day."

After the gang is gone, Dirk goes to draw some water and prepares to start cleaning out the major surfaces. Urine was relatively easy. The musk smells would take some time. As he started to clean, he also began looking around for some signs of why the furries had been so willing to leave.

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Search: (1d20+8)[19]

[The_JJ]

Gav steps aside and waves at the familiar faces as they go by, then he turns to the mess. Oh man. He salutes preemptively. On it mast-boss! Cleaning up the mess, boss!

This was always the worst part of training. Gav mutters to himself as he sloshes a bucket across the floor. Ugh, I think I'd rather not touch that.

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Casting Prestigation!

[Xealot7]

Watch Captain, Sergeant John Tarrant

Sergeant Tarrant keeps a watchful eye on the thugs as they leave, making sure they attempt nothing that could cause harm to his men. "Well boys, you got the right idea. Let's get this place cleaned up." The Watch Captain jumps in and begins cleaning right along side his men.

Perception: (1d20+9)[25]

[Scow2]

[I don't want to advance the action with this post, and want to wait for those I've accidentally not given a chance to respond before this progresses again]
Properly inside the now-reabandoned Watch House, it becomes clear the entire place is a filthy, absolute mess.

The downstairs lobby is pretty bad, whatwith the one bunged toilet in the bathroom that nevertheless seemed to continue to be used, but aside from that, makes the rest of the place look clean.

The second level, normally the barracks, looks and like its beds were used for far less innocent purposes than sleep, and never washed. The lockers are busted, and everything horribly horribly stained.

The third floor main office has been thoroughly trashed, the chair downstairs, the desk covered in Vecna-knows-what, and carpet as filthy as the rest of the place, though it's tidy enough to give access to the window. The lesser offices on the floor are in simlarly bad condition, with some broken desks and furniture.

Ironically, the Jail is comfortably clean and sanitary, the obvious with the cells converted into bedrooms, and the hallway kept clean and decorated with some tribal-style artwork left behind from the evacuations. The only out-of-place things were the cell doors, which were moved against the back wall neatly, and replaced with cloth curtains of some sort over the cell entrances.

Even with the magical cleaning ability of Presdigitation, cleaning this place up will take a large amount of time filled with tedious and very demeaning labor for just the six watchmen. And the 18 or 20-strong gang of Clawz managed to walk away scot-free and disappear throughout the district.

[Ajadea]

Razuri grimaces once he realizes just how filthy this place is. "I don't think we'll be able to get all this done in a day. Maybe a week. Until then, we should probably leave the jail alone. I'm not sleeping in one of those flea-ridden heaps upstairs." He begins to clean, then stops for a second. "This is going to be a nightmare." he groans.

Change Shape (humanoid): (1d20+7)[15]: Failed, cannot return to elf form until next sunrise.

[Tyrael]

Corporal Teevo spends the next several hours using his Kobold Army Knife to do all sorts of odds and ends around the Watch House from fixing the vandalized toilet to oiling up locks, fixing hinges, repairing the lockers, hammering in errant nails, sawing new floorboards to replace rotted ones, sewing bedsheets and working on a side project that he keeps carefully clustered off in one corner, gears and sprockets obsessively organized.

When Gav goes down the street for food that night for dinner, Teevo orders his trusty rat-onna-stick-wiv-ketchup. Chomping idly on the impaled creature, the little Kobold reflects that he would have been lucky to get a whole rat to himself back down in the Kobold warrens underneath the city. Now you could get them whole for just a few coppers! Truly the times were a-changing.

That evening when he feels like a break, Teevo can be found in a small corner of the Watch break room that he had carefully cleaned out for himself, including a small chessboard. Thankful that he wasn't called to make the Night Watch rounds that night, Teevo is perfectly content to curl up in a corner of the cold stone cells, eschewing the soft (if filthy) beds upstairs.

[The_JJ]

Gav takes his meals sitting on a high sill or on the roof, one leg idly hanging over mid air, hands occupied with either a rat on a stick (a cheap, greasy, guilty pleasure) or a maybe a chicken thigh or pork ribs. He volunteers for any cleaning duties up high and outside; cleaning out the gutters, repainting the sign over the door, what have you.

He makes his shopping trips short and to the point, ready to get meals back so work can continue. As rooms up top are cleared out and the locks on the cells replaced he'll also claim a corner on the residential levels to sleep in.

[Toliudar]

Lance Corporal Vale dives into the clean-up with steadily decreasing enthusiasm, and is thrilled at the end of his first day that there is at least a clean - if somewhat fur-covered - bed in which to settle.

On the second morning of cleaning, Dirk gets a better idea. Heading out into the neighbourhood, he seeks out the bored or homeless kids of the neighbourhood. Offering a little silver and a curried meat pie at the end of the day, he selects four promising individuals, who he leads up to the second-floor barracks. He sets them to work washing out the stained fabrics, washing down the floors, borrowing a couple of Teevo's tools to fix those lockers that are salvageable. Along the course of the day, he encourages the kids to talk about their own stories, nodding and judging nothing. He talks about how excited the watch are to be back in this neighbourhood, and how lucrative it would be for enterprising young women and men who bring them information about extraordinary happenings on the streets. At the end of the day, he tosses in a Funnel-Cake-Of-Dubious-Provenance, and offers twice the silver to any of the four who choose to return the next day.

[Ajadea]

Razuri shuffles around in his scruffy wolf form, doing the menial tasks, the ones that require a bit of extra lifting, and cursing the fact that so many things are just impossible to do with furry fingers and claws. Once he remembers to eat, he asks Gav to buy him a fried rat with ketchup.

He is the last to claim a room, seeing as how he doesn't really sleep, ever. At the end of the day, he climbs up on the roof to eat with Gavin and try to remember how it feels to not be suffocating in stink.

[Xealot7]

Watch Captain, Sergeant John Tarrant

The sergeant continues cleaning as he supervises his troops and checks on morale. Until this mess is cleaned up, there is little else the watch can do. It wouldn't do to bring criminals here in the Watch Houses current condition. They would be more of a laughingstock than they are now. If that's even possible. Hopefully a few more days and this place will at least be at a passable so he can get watch duties accomplished.