Clandestine Operations playtest - "the Garrote"

[BarroomBard]

Mattock gives Jack a light thump on the head. "Listen, whip-snapper, If'n you was my grandson, I'd expect a little more respect out your mouth," he growls, a wry smile lessening the impact of his words. "Now, what'd you learn down there? How many we got?"

As they talk, Mattock unholsters his crossbow, laying it on the bed, and loosens his sword in its sheath under his cloak.

"Way I sees it, this'll have to go down like so: first," he says, raising his index finger, "We wait for Alyera to get the guards good and distracted. Then," his second finger, "We either kill the guard at the end of the hall and bust down the door, or we go in through the roof or a window."

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Does the inn have a thatch roof, or is it something harder like tile?

[SamBurke]

The moment the guard's on the other side of the door, and the door is closed, Alyera goes to work. With only a few minutes before the volatile males decide to start stabbing things, she has to make sure this works. "Really, guys..." she mutters, "After all we've done together, you'd think a little patience might have been learned... 'LET'S STAB IT!' gets kind of old after a while..." She starts grabbing her springs and tightening them together, and a machine gradually begins to appear on her bed.

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(1d20+10)[11] Do the tools give me a bonus to Gadgetry? (It's not factored into that roll).

[Vixsor Lumin]

"We have three guards, one from downstairs, one in the hall, and presumeably one in the room. Of course we also have the target himself, he's inside the room. Apparently there hasn't been any trouble from the guards yet so that's surprising. I also sent the two witnesses walking, they wouldn't have been much help in "rescuing Aly so I figured the damsal plan wouldn't work." he says with a slight oof at the old soldiers thump. "The way I see it we have a few options: go blitz on the guy in the hall, go for entry though a window, or try to find Alyera and see what toys shes brought. Personally I vote for option three despite how fun the other two sound."

[BarroomBard]

"Perhaps. If she brought any of her explosives, I have a plan involving the outhouse I saw out back. Let's take a look, shall we?" He opens the door and creeps down the hall, keeping low to avoid being caught in the moonlight and the guard's line of sight.

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Mobility, moving slowly (1d20+4)[20]
Stealth: (1d20+2)[7]

[Vixsor Lumin]

"Care to elaborate on this plan of yours?" he whispers with a half laugh as Mattock opens the door.

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Mobility at half speed (1d20+4)[9]
Stealth(1d20+6)[22] were headed to Aly's room right?

[Kensen]

A floorboard creaks under Mattock's weight, but the guard doesn't seem to react in any way. You make it to Aly's door without anyone noticing.

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The roof is made of slate tiles.

Yes you get the +2 bonus on the Gadgetry check. What are you building, though?

[BarroomBard]

Mattock knocks lightly on Alyera's door, and whispers, "Oh Granddaughter, are you alone in there?"

Waiting for a response, he turns to Jack, the moonlight glinting in his one eye. "Now if I told you, lad, it would ruin the surprise."

[SamBurke]

Alyera opens the door. "I'm free... for now. Let's get this going."

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First, a spring with enough power to punch a bodkin/hook system through a wall. That weakens the edges, so the boys can kick it down.

Alternately, just gunpowder.

[Vixsor Lumin]

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Hahaha is Aly gonna open the door?

[SamBurke]

I have no idea what you're talking about... *whistles*

[Vixsor Lumin]

Jack steps into the room quietly, he gives her a quick hug. Seeing her latest creation taking shape on the bed, he smiles to himself. "Well it seems you've been keeping busy Aly." he says quietly with a low chuckle. "I assume you've invented a way to go through the walls? Old Man your ideas often leave me with a a story no one would believe and a bit of a mess.... I'm all ears" he smirks at the only two people he truley trusts in this life.

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EDIT: I didn't see that you opened the door >.< ok I didn't expect us to know each other yet so my mental back story just got a quick edit to haha but I love how this is turning out I said before that he would be flat at first and he is where he starts to develop as a character

[Kensen]

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Gunpowder hasn't been invented yet, so there are no explosives, really. To build a spring, you'd need elastic material to store energy. I'm not fully convinced there's enough material in the room to build a mechanical device powerful enough to punch through a wall, and it would take hours and a difficult Gadgetry check to assemble it, and it'd make hell of a lot of noise and wake up everyone in the building, but I'm willing to suspend my disbelief to see what you have been planning.

So, what's your next move?

[SamBurke]

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My idea is that I've brought the super-powered springs; everything else is odds and ends (nails, boards, housing assemblies, string, stuff like that) and *should* be easy to find/carry/have/obtain.

Will my TN check make it?

EDIT: Just noticed my TN roll was... 1. DERP. At least I had a +12 to the roll...

[Kensen]

Aly finishes building the spring-powered device. Since there was little time and the materials she found in the room were suboptimal, the device is not quite as elaborate as she wanted. It might work if you're lucky.

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Well, you rolled a 1. While a "natural 1" is not an auto-fail in this game, even with the amazing +10 skill bonus and +2 item bonus the check result is only a 13, a little below 15 which would be the TN for a task of average difficulty/complexity. And building such a device would probably be more difficult than "average difficulty" since you ad hocced the design. So I'd say she didn't make the check, BUT I'm going to let you use the device though it's not guaranteed it'll work exactly the way she intended.

[SamBurke]

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OK. Makes sense... does she know she failed epically?

[BarroomBard]

"'For now?' Are you expecting more guests?" He examines the clockwork contraption on the bed. It looks dangerous - in the bad way - so he backs off slightly. Instead, he pulls out the map they were given by the Quartermaster, and spreads it out on the washstand.

"Alright, kiddies, here's the plan. Alyera, when your guests arrive, give a little whistle. You think you can handle them on your own?" He waits for a response before moving on. "Then, Jack will shoot the guard at the end of the hall. We stash his body in our room, then bust down the good Captain's door. Jack and I deal with the guards, tie up the Captain, then use this spring-loaded monster to bust through the outside wall. We hop out, mount the horses - and then we're smoke."

[SamBurke]

"Right. When the guards run out, I'll run with them, but stop. That's when you take me "hostage", right?" Alyera blushes, and looks down at her machine. "Hope this baby works..."

[BarroomBard]

Mattock gingerly picks up the device, hefting it's weight."And if it doesn't, I'm sure I could throw it at someone."

[Kensen]

Suddenly, you hear footsteps walking down the hall towards the stairs.

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You may roll Awareness to try and guess how many people, how heavy footsteps, and so on. You may try to make a Stealth check to open the door ever so slightly and peek who's walking there, but there's a chance they'll notice.

Good plan by the way. Meaning that at least you have a plan that might work.

And yes, Aly knows that her device may not work, and it may actually be dangerous to use.

EDIT: Whhooops wrong tags.

[Vixsor Lumin]

"Sounds like a plan but where do we hide the..." he suddenly hears the footsteps. "Bollocks!" he rolls under the bed and knocks an arrow while listening to the footsteps

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Awareness (1d20+4)[17]
Stealth (1d20+6)[20] and I agree good plan haha

[BarroomBard]

Mattock puts his ear to the door, trying to determine how many are tramping down the stairs. He reaches up to the hilt of his sword, just in case.

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Awareness (1d20+5)[7]

[SamBurke]

Alyera pops her knuckles, and then grins wildly. "Let me handle this, guys. Just follow my lead and do some acting..." She pauses for just a moment, and then grabs a hammer from out of her bag.

"GET OUT! GET OUT, BOTH OF YOU! HOW DARE YOU?!?!" She begins to flail the hammer wildly at both Jack and Mattock, purposefully missing, causing as loud of a racket as she can. In the middle of her wild rant, she throws open the door, and bodily pushes both men out. "Don't you dare touch me, got it? You think you're tough, don't you? Well, I'm tougher. Scat! And if I see you again, I'll give you another working over!" She throws the hammer out the door at the two bewildered men, followed by a few other choice implements.

Most notably, the escape device, which she's careful to throw off to the side so it doesn't go off.

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Guile check to fool the guard (If I need to make it):
(1d20+5)[6]
Do I need to roll to fail my attack checks for attacking Jack/Mattock?

[Vixsor Lumin]

Good god she's a genius! Jack thinks to himself as he crawls out from under the bed and out the door as quickly as possble while still looking scared and panicky (not hard to do when a hammer smashes the ground in front of your face) "Alright gods!! Im leaving!!"

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Guile (1d20+6)[14] I'm hoping our combined guile checks add up to an awesome score haha if we all act in unison do we get like a circumstance bonus?

[Kensen]

As you burst out of the door into the hall, you see three men. One of them is a brawny middle-aged man clad in brigandine, with a bandolier of knives across his chest and two short swords strapped across his back. "What the hell..." His voice sounds familiar to Aly.

A second man, this one wearing a fine suit of mail armor and wearing an arming sword on his belt, steps forward. His features are ruggedly handsome and his nose slightly hawkish. He speaks in an eerily calm voice: "What is the problem here? Are these men disturbing you, young lady?"

The brawny man points a finger at Aly. "I saw Ecker with her earlier tonight. Ecker was carrying something and they were going to her room. I think. Now the tramp had two men in her room! A busy night, aye?"

"I see," the man in mail armor replies. "What is going on here?"

The third man keeps quiet. He's wearing a brigandine armor, and a short sword on his belt. The belt has many small leather pouches on it.

[Vixsor Lumin]

"Excuse me sirs, but this isn't what it seems apparentlly we were mistaken about which room was mine. Me and this other fine gentleman were just going to my room to talk about our days in Goldheim. You can ask the nice woman down stairs. I'm sure she overheard us talking." He tried to reason/lie to them. Hopefully him laying facedown in the hallway wouldn't affect his "barganing" position....

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Guile (1d20+6)[9] so much for hiding under the bed and stabbing the b*****ds in the foot haha

EDIT: apparentlly the RDG has decided that it makes me a horrible liar.

[Kensen]

Jack notices a golden griffon symbol adorning the man's armor. Which means... He's a captain in the Invictus army. (And the rest of them have symbols of Invictus all over their gear, which I totally forgot to mention!)

He stares at Jack with his cold blue eyes. "You are a terrible liar. I suggest you find your room at once and stay there. If you bother her or us again, I'll have you arrested. And you, fraulein, I suggest you keep your door locked."

The brawny soldier chuckles. "Let's go capt'n. I'm hungry."

The men go downstairs.

[Vixsor Lumin]

Standing and brushing himself off, Jack gives their backs a stoic one fingered salute. He waits till they are out of ear shot to begin speaking. "Well apparentlly I am because I got the same result as if I were a great liar," he laughs. "Well it seems we have a new opportunity to set an ambush in their room. Maybe. Hopefully... we've had so many plans come and go in the space of the 20 minutes we've been here I don't know what were doing anymore." he pauses before adding with a smile: "At least were adaptable!"

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ok I vote for Mattock and I to ambush them in their room and for Aly to pick up her guests... that is if its still possible

[Kensen]

Jack had stew earlier this evening, and they served it so hot that it took 20 minutes to eat it. So, you estimate you have at least 30 minutes before they're back upstairs.

So what's your plan?

Are you going to ambush the captain in his room as Jack suggested?

[SamBurke]

Alyera bows to the officers. "These men RUDELY tried to barge in here... without any proper respect or etiquette for a lady." She glares at both of them. "I am no tramp. The one thing I appreciate is decorum, and proper treatment." A second glare, with a kinder look towards the gentleman who helped her up the stairs. "Consider this door bolted to any who don't understand such." She bows for a second time, and closes her door.

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OK, that didn't quite go as planned... goofy rollers. Well, what's our plan now, guys? Most of these men are going downstairs, so we might be able to escape, still, as they will be distracted.

[Kensen]

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The man who helped Aly actually went back downstairs. You hadn't seen any of these three men before, but you're guessing the brawny soldier was Ruger who was keeping watch in the hall when you went to your room.