New Age of the Goddess - Chapter 0: A friend in Nede (IC)

[Lightning Fast]

"Thank you," Roland whispers, exiting the cell. He does his best to be quiet, "Do you know where they're keeping my things...?"

[An Amy]

Griffin
"Hey! Stop right there!" the guard yells behind Shadowspawn as the rogue breaks from the guardhouse into the darkness of night before giving chase. "Dran, go! I'll get the lantern. Mik! Chalil! There's an intruder fleeing! Carl, where are you?"

The younger man with the crossbow runs down the corridor and stops at the door to raise the weapon up and take aim at the rapidly disappearing form of the trespasser before shouting a threat. "I'll fire!"
Dran, as the man was called earlier, lowers the weapon with a curse and continues pursuit into the city. Carl and his lantern on a pole soon join the younger man and a second lantern from the other guard from earlier.

Roland and Fir
At the top of the stairs is lantern light as two of the guards remain behind, weapons drawn. One mutters to the other about the lock to the contraband. "Seems fine... probably had trouble getting into it."

"Creepin' bloody two fingers," the other one responds.

[junlogji]

"I don't know and I doubt we have time to get them." Fir whispered back before bounding up to the guards and releasing her sleep mimicry on them. If they are incapacitated she keeps running down the corridors to the exit.

[Lightning Fast]

Sighing, Roland follows along behind Fir. "Suppose I can get some new gear when we get out of this mess..." he grumbles. He didn't have anything irreplaceable on him, but it would be expensive to replace.

[An Amy]

Roland and Fir
At the top of the stairs, the two guards notice the light coming up at them. Light coming from a dagger. They notice barely that two individuals are coming up the stairs. Expecting, perhaps, the other guard, they are confused for the briefest of moments as they realization that it is not their fellow watch member ascending toward them. But the mimicked sleep spell from the changeling soothe their various concerns as they fall to the floor in a similar fashion as the guard below. Their bodies limp and stacking in the back corridor of the guard house. Shouts from outside indicating that there was no alarm sounded but that several guards are now involved in pursuing someone. Shadowspawn is nowhere to be seen.

Griffin
The various guards following the rogue are in chainmail and various other restrictive armors. The ones who are not were either roused too late or were too far from the initial point of the action to catch up to the running silhouette. The rain is coming down and drowning out the sounds of running footsteps despite the puddles here and there. Fires and torches in guard towers cast a very faint glow. Only just illuminating the tops of buildings and allowing the rogue enough light to navigate the streets with his enhanced, elf-blooded vision.

[Lioslaith]

Griffin wil confuse the pursuit and put enough distance between them to blend back into the crowd. Pulling up his cloak and stuffing his hat in his pack. Hopefully it's enough to change his silouette, once that's down he starts making his way to the jail looking for the changeling and her paladin.

[Lightning Fast]

Roland raises an eyebrow and glances at Fir. "I must say, I'm impressed with how smooth this is going..." he says, "You must be good at this... gonna have to ask you about that later." His tone is more cordial than threatening. Despite the situation he's in, Roland seems fairly calm and content, likely to do with his being hardened by years of service and the fact that he was just freed from prison and saved from execution.

[junlogji]

Choosing to not respond to the paladin for now, Fir runs out of the prison and ends the light mimicry and starts running through the city to their meeting spot. If they get there safely, Fir will sheath her dagger and extend a hand to the paladin. "I am Fir, a bit of a jack of all trades. I convinced a local outlaw going by the title Shadowspawn to help me break you out. Since we got separated I must assume that when I made your guard pass out earlier that the noise alerted some of his comrades. Do you know any place around here that it safe for us and not a place they would expect us to look? We need a place to rest up and plan our next move."

[An Amy]

Griffin
The currently Vernian-based blade returns to the guardhouse under no suspicion. The guards are not on particularly high alert given that a would-be thief was run off, though the town's gates are better manned. By the time Griffin makes it back around again, there is no sign of the changeling or the paladin. However, the meeting place of the stables in the lower town is easy enough to find in the darkness. By the time he arrives, the cloudy sky breaks just a little and the moon begins to come out. The rain has lightened to a drizzle but has gotten markedly colder. The Changeling and the Paladin are discovered within the darkened stable.

Roland and Fir
The movement through the city is easy enough with the guards searching now rather passively for suspicious people. The darkness aides in remaining hidden. Couple that with the guards not being too aggressive in their searches... or, rather, glances, the pair make it from the city to the stables as agreed upon earlier.

When Fir is done speaking, the door to the stables opens. Shadowspawn enters without his hat, silently, and pulls the stable door shut once more.

[Lightning Fast]

Roland smiles, reaching out a hand to shake Fir's, then Shadowspawn's. "I owe you both my life. You have my eternal gratitude," he says genuinely, "Thanks to you, I can go home and see my daughter again."

"If we need somewhere else to recuperate," Roland adds, "The Order of the Bison may not be a bad idea, though that's likely the first place they'll be looking for me. If I'm to truly be safe, I must expose the bastard that framed me to the higher authorities, and hopefully have him recalled and disciplined. I cannot leave this place until I have taken care of something for a particularly cowardly but otherwise innocent nobleman."

Holding the dagger close to his cheek and slicing off a few beard-hairs, he asks the two sneaky figures: "Do any of you have a mirror? If I shave and cut my hair, perhaps it will be harder for the guards to recognize me."

[Lioslaith]

Clasping the paladin's strong hand Griffin's eyes widen at the daughter comment. Casting a sideways glance at Fir he thinks Hmmm, misread that. But then I never was any good at that.

"We can use my room at the Mary. Or talk here if you'd rather." Peeking out of the stables to see if it's all clear. Through the rain and their position he's pretty confident no one will overhear them, "What about this bastard that framed you now?"

[junlogji]

"The room at the Mary seems like a better idea right now. If I where looking for an escaped paladin I would be looking at the nearest paladin orders." Fir explained. "In that room you can shave and cut your hair and then we can plan our next course of action. It would be too risky to sleep there."

[Lioslaith]

"Easy now, I didn't put sleeping there on the table as an option. Let's get a short term and long term strategy hammered out here before we go anywhere. It will also give the guards time to check the Inn's and other places first."

Griffin relaxed and took a seat on some hay, letting it draw the moisture out of his clothes.

[Lightning Fast]

"I believe my framer's name is Captain Trumbol, head of an Iestern Calvary regimen," The paladin says, "Bastard knew I was looking into his regimen's violations of their treaties with the border towns, until he framed me for Margrave Pol Ledonmirth's murder. Pol didn't want me in the clink either, but Trumbol's got his family, so there's not a whole lot he can do. Roland sits down on a pile of hay as well, sighing. "Were it not for Pol's predicament, I'd have left already. The Order of the Bison should be able to bring Trumbol to justice if they put their heads together, but they may not be able to save the Margrave's family.

[Lioslaith]

"So we need to find where Trumbol is keeping the Margraves family and rescue them. And we need to do it soon before they get the impression that you have fled the area and decide they don't need them for leverage any more. . Griffin wonders if any of his guild contacts would be trustworthy enough to ask for information.

Realizing something the paladin said earlier "By the way, don't go thinking you owe me your life, that was all this ones doing, not mine. I'm no hero." He nods towards Fir as he says this.

[junlogji]

"I'm looking for redemption." Fir said quietly while trying to keep a look-out. "And I hope I can find it."

[An Amy]

All

Fir explains that she's had issues with her ability to use her shape change ability. And she's seeking redemption for her past actions. Roland's false imprisonment presented itself to her as an opportunity to start to right some past wrongs, though she's not going into details as to what they are. Just her want to balance things out.

The margraves family is being held by the Iestern cavalier captain north of the town. Fir and Griffin remember seeing some cavaliers headed north out the northgate and commenting on seeing people to the north. The camp is not large. The land is rather flat and featureless with slow rises for hills here and there. The camp sits off the northern road. About six cavaliers can be found there including a large tent where the margrave's family is being kept. Freeing them turns out to be a task engrossed in battle. While Fir and Griffin sneak in to assure the family's safety, Sir Roland calls out for a challenge of the cavalier captain. The challenge is met with all the cavaliers mounting and charging into combat, though sabotage of saddles makes their efforts far more difficult. Fir whisks the family away while Griffin joins in the combat against the armed foes in the night.

Ultimately, Trumbol is arrested in the camp and the other cavaliers are bound and tied up. The watch tower saw what was going on and came out to investigate with the margrave instructing them to put Trumbol's men under arrest. In the town is a different matter as more than a dozen more Iestern men remain and out-class Boarn's guards. With the group's help, they manage to surprise enough to the cavaliers and subdue them that the remaining are outnumbered. The arrested men are carted up and sent back to Iestern north toward the Order of the Bison where they will be guaranteed to be returned to Iestern properly and not released by another Iestern sympathizer, as can be frequently found in Vernia, unfortunately.

However, the events begin to tell the tale of something deeper. Corruption in the senate. Trumbol, in his angered ravings of revenge and justice, said that he'd be back soon enough with full support of the senate. This hinted at his presence actually having been authorized perhaps. Or at least a senator having arranged it even if it was not official. The margrave was none too pleased to hear it and seemed distraught. He explained that rumors, dismissed as far too wild to hold any truth, spoke of a supposed change. Vernia becoming a state of Iestern like many other former nations. Iestern had not pursued any conquest in generations. Si'Firali, the drow king of Iestern, had never raised an army for conquest. Perhaps that could be changing...

Over the next several months, the three, Roland, Fir and Griffin, discover that there is truth to those rumors. Some members of the senate are seeking to be added to Iestern by way of willfull succession of land. Working with some others and eventually another senator or two, the three uncover the corruption and its links back to Iestern's western governors. They expose the members of the senate that made such arrangement, rescue an entire city from a fiery destruction and even get the attention of the Drow King himself who personally invites them to attend the public execution of the Governors who plotted to add Vernian territory to their own. Whether or not the group accepts the invitation from the openly ruling drow, is up to them. Regardless, the Vernian senate is sent a gift from the Iestern ruler in the form of a hundred slaves carrying chests of gold that also contained the heads of the governors plus the head of one of the former Vernian senators that fled to Iestern and sought asylum after avoiding the adventurers' trap.