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'Forgive my rather toyish manner sir, yes indeed it is powder, which I'm hoping you will be able to tell me something about. The council, and to some extent your Empire officials recognize that Chaos is a far worse enemy than ordinary criminals, and in this business compromises can be made. What I'm looking for is information that could lead to any agents of destruction coming to suffer punishment, and I'm sure you realise the connection this powder poses. Although I do not possess as much sway in Human lands as elsewhere. What I'm saying is I can perhaps effect magistrates, in return for words the Council would come to value.'
He looks the man directly in the eyes, 'I make no pretenses of any promises sir, but business around the Crow increases every day, and time spent here is a waste no matter how short.'
Interesting bluff. Test time: Charm (half of Fel - 36/2 = 18), + 20 for your appeal to trying to get him out earlier.
..and I forgot to put the roll in. Typical. And I can't edit it in either... to the OOC thread, I guess.
Dort regarded Ithelus in silence, a stillness settling over the man.
“You – ha – seem to know a lot about me, sir. While I know very little about you. It seems to me that I have no guarantee that you will help me as you promise, while you question me about the very same work that the man who placed me here claims to be engaged in. I have had quite enough of vigilantes, mister Trachealt, and unless you can produce proofs of your own authority, I must suspect you of trying to lure me into incriminating myself.”
He gave a small, quiet smile.
“It is a small comfort to me that Halbermann must resort to such desperate strategies.”
Ithelus nods. He stands and takes the powder back from Dort. He walks to the door and turns to Raffy. 'Break his fingers' He says, dead serious.
...
After a pause he starts laughing amicably and motions for Raffy that it was a joke. 'I like you sir, you cover your back well, and your disdain for the Hounds is well placed in my view. If only they were not so.... zealous in their actions they might have actually got somewhere instead of barking up trees, if you will excuse my play. I will leave you to your peace, who knows I might come back if I have some free time.' He opens the door and lets Raffy out, and just before exiting he turns again to Dort. 'By the way, Sir, your distrust is valuable, but not well placed this time I feel.' He shows Dort the Captains's signature and seal. He pauses slightly, almost lingering, as if there is more he wishes to ask but instead he leaves.
As they exit the prison Ithelus turns to Dort. 'He is not to be allowed any contact with other prisoners our outsiders until I return, I must consult the Captain before we can progress with this.' e drops two shicllings into the guard's hand. 'Ensure these are carried out personally please, kind sir. It is of utmost importance.'
Dort watched them go in silence, the expression on his face a quiet mask of insulted dignity. As they left, the turnkey nodded, pocketing the coins and slamming the cell door shut again. The key clattered in the lock.
"Right you are, sir. When might you be returning, sir?"
Seth smiles broadly. "My employers asked me to withhold their names for the time being, but once these blackguards are brought to justice, I'll be certain to reccomend you. Um, if you have something, a card, or a piece of paper I might write your name and address on?"
Unless the shopkeeper attempts overmuch to pin him down for more info, Seth bids him good day. Outside, he starts heading toward Neumarket. Turning towards Lothar, he says "Seeecond verse, same-as-the-first!" with a wink.
“Jakob Greitling, Altmarket Square, sir,” said the burgher, tearing a page from a ledger and scribbling it in a broad hand on the back. “Very glad to make your acquaintance.”
[hr]
Neumarket
Spoiler
Karlsen’s shop was a little harder to find – the Neumarket sprawled across several ragged squares and streets, and its dirty shop-fronts were obscured by a multitude of stalls, wagons and stacks of crates. The people here dressed poorer, spoke less, and were more numerous, the boiling crowd of human traffic threatening to separate the trio more than once.
In the end, they found it in a strange, crooked corner of the market – its windows had lost their glass and been boarded up as a consequence, but the multitude of prints in the mud outside the door suggested it still saw a great volume of custom. A battered sign had been nailed up over the entrance:
Karl Karlsen’s blackpowder Emporium
Powder and Shotte is what We’ve Gotte
Pushing open the door, Seth stifled a cough at the strong chemical smell that assailed him from within – the inside of the shop was dark (due to the lack of windows), a single, glass-shielded lantern burning on the counter. Like Greitling’s, the place was festooned with blackpowder weapons – unlike Greitling’s, they seemed in a uniformly poor state of repair, for the most part stacked like tumbledown piles of lumbers in corners or crates.
A sooty face that was half obscured by a ferocious, brindled beard of sharp black hairs popped up above the counter like a Jack-in-the-box, Karl Karlsen’s grimy face looking around at his ‘customers’ with sharp, jerky movements. The man was at least a head shorter than even Illiiya, almost mistakeable for a Dwarf – scuttling round to the side of the counter, he gave them all an appraising look, taking particular interest in the elf.
“You come to buy powder? Guns?” he snapped. “What’s yer business?”
"Not the business I'm in. If you happen to think of something that could help, I could make it worth your while. My employer is prepared to offer a reward of one gold crown for any leads that might aid me."
Another charm roll, in case you think adding a bribe qualifies me. If he still says no, I bid him good day and we head towards the meetup point, I suppose (unless Illiya and Lothar have another idea).
Thankfully Raffy is too surprised to comply quickly with Ithelus' finger-breaking order. He keeps a stoney face as he considers what to do, and it about to turn and at least threaten the man when Ithelus reveals it was an, er, "joke." If all elves have this sense of humor...
Once outside he seems to be in good spirits and to have forgotten all about the tension. He whistles as they walk toward the pawn shop.
OOC
Spoiler
Quote:
Originally Posted by LCP
"Make it three, an' maybe I might... remember something."
Now that he's said that, the question is whether amgodtic is going to leap on him and beat an answer out.
__________________
In real life I quit my job and left my home to become a professional adventurer. The Great Adventure
Raffy speaks as if he's already given it some thought.
"If we go see his front man he'll know someone's looking into him. Best thing to do is approach him personally, even if he doesn't like it much. Just one of us though - the other should stay nearby as surprise backup in case he decides to be uncivil."
He ponders. "Me, I'd rather be the surprise, just because you have more of a way with words. That suit you?"
((if yes))
"'Course we need an excuse to be there in the first place. Got any good lies to approach him with so he's not so on guard?"
__________________
In real life I quit my job and left my home to become a professional adventurer. The Great Adventure
The pawnshop was tucked away in a narrow lane behind the Crow, gold paint flaking from the three tarnished metal balls that hung over the door. The rain-stained gables of the houses narrowed the sky overhead to the merest slit, casting the length of the muddy alley into shadow.
Stepping to one side of the door, Raffy nodded to Ithelus – the elf pushed open the door, the hinges creaking irritably at the intrusion. Inside, the shop was a profusion of odds and ends, a battered trumpet lying on top of what looked like it might once have been a rather expensive chest of drawers. Along one wall, there were racks of clothes of wildly varying quality, while several cases of books had been allowed to spill across the dust-covered floorboards.
A withered old man looked up at the elf, his face scrunched up in a short-sighted squint – he kept squinting as he took in the unusual nature of his visitor, his irritable expression vanishing into wary confusion.
“What?” he managed.
“Excuse me – I’m looking for Dietlief Kleiner.”
“Is he looking for you?”
“I don’t think so.”
Pursing his lips as if sucking on a particularly bitter lemon, the man reached over, picking up a lead-handled cane that stood by his chair. Holding it by the wrong end, he thumped it three times against the low ceiling, each thump dislodging a thin drizzle of dust.
After a long pause, there were creaking footsteps, as if from a hidden stairwell – a nondescript door at the back of the shop opened, and a hulking mountain of a man squeezed impossibly out of it, filling the space between the floor and the ceiling most impressively.
“This elf here says he wants to see the boss, Bruno.”
‘Bruno’ looked from the pawnbroker to Ithelus, and back.
“The boss ain’t got no elf appointments today,” he rumbled. “Boss ain’t had no elf appointments ever.”
“’E says he knows.”
The big man looked Ithelus up and down with a professional eye.
“You want to go up, I’ve got to search yer. Fer weapons.”
Seth strokes his chin, then shrugs non-chalantly "Hm...admittedly, we're getting blackballed everywhere else; I'll simply tell Maloy the information came from multiple individuals." He digs out a couple more crowns and hands them over.
"You're not fooling anyone, lad. You tell Dietlief I give him my regards. 'Bout time the god-botherers up at the Temple started squeezin' him for results."
Sweeping the shining coins out of sight, he looked sharply up again.
"The old temple going up - no-one could have hid the fact they were buyin' that much gunpowder, not if they were Ranald hisself. I saw it, and it was a right spectacular job - all the stained glass blowin' out, and they were stone walls, mind you, too, tumbling down like old timber. I never sold that much, and if old Greitling had grabbed a profit that big, soft in the head as he is, you can bet he wouldn't be sittin' about in the same old shop as he is now. They must have brought it in on a barge, or in carts, when it was dark like, from somewhere out of town. Maybe they stole army supplies. I dunno."
He leaned forward.
"But, just recent like, I've got a right rum cully coming in 'ere, saying he wants to buy powder. He's not army, he don't work for any of the lads round here who might... occasionally... have use for guns and such, and he's buying it by the barrel, a few barrels at a time - no shot, no guns. I sell to anyone who can pay, but there's something about that man that makes your hair stand on end. Always dressed as if it's pourin' with rain, and with an ugly burn down one side of his face. Always had mates to do the lifting, but they never said a word. Don't know that I even saw most of 'em's faces, all swaddled up like their pal."
He leant back again.
"He an' his chums bought a fair few barrels before they ran out of money. Bought 'em in ones and twos. Day b'fore yesterday, he asked for credit, so I ran him out of the shop. Glad to see the back of him, honestly. Unless 'e's test-firin' a cannon somewhere out in the woods, I don't know what he could have wanted it for. You want to go pokin' your nose into people with blackpowder on their hands, you ought to go looking for him."
Raffy takes a place beside the door, only a few feet down, rest his back against the wall and waits, keeping his ears sharp in case of any scuffle inside.
He plans to check on Ithelus after a few minutes just in case.
Spoiler
"Checking" means this:
After about 4 minutes go by he'll enter the shop as if he is just a random customer. He'll look through books. If Ith is there he'll pretend he doesn't know him. I'll let LCP decide when it's been 4 minutes - I doubt it has been yet.
__________________
In real life I quit my job and left my home to become a professional adventurer. The Great Adventure
On the way out of the first verse, Lothar grinned and nodded to Seth. He fell into an easy pattern alongside the squire; casual, and keeping an eye around him. Mostly on the elf, though, his expression a mixture of curiosity and concern.
At Karlsen's the former soldier lost no time in resuming the same lyrics as the first verse- experienced gunner looking at supplies. He whistled tunelessly under his breath while doing so- this place was clearly the kind that catered to anyone.
The merchant's information was helpful-- and matched what had been said about the lads squatting in the basement on the west side. Lothar felt like a character from cheap theatre that had come across a tobacco tin.
[/spoiler]Ithelus nods, and with a deft movement he pulls out a concealed throwing knife from his sleeve. And a second one. And another one. He flicks his dagger from his belt and places them on a counter next to the other knives. He then strolls over to the mountain of a man and stands in front of him, arms and legs slightly spread.[/spoiler]
The man gave him a quick but professional-seeming search, checking his sleeves, boots and the inside of his jacket for any more knives. Seemingly satisfied, he stepped back, indicating the staircase with a grunt.
"You first."
The staircase was narrow to the point of claustrophobia, the scarred wooden steps buckled and bowed by age and the weight of use - Bruno somehow fitting into the narrow stairwell behind him, Ithelus emerged into a large attic room. A broad, square window that took up a fair proportion of the slanting ceiling let in the sunlight through its grimy panes, making the elf blink after the gloom of the pawnshop: this room too, was cluttered with all manner of strange odds and ends, but not in the way of wares. Stacks of yellowing paper lurked in the corners, tumbledown piles of what looked like ledgers, letters and every conceivable object in between waiting to fall on an unwary bystander. Around them, iron-bound chests and trunks, each with its own lock, cluttered the bare floorboards.
In the centre of the room, a small, middle-aged man sat in a rickety chair - the seat's sides had short poles attached, like the world's cheapest sedan. Two more men, not quite as impressive as Bruno, stood behind it, watching Ithelus cautiously.
"Turn me round, boys," wheezed the man in the chair - acknowledging his order in silence, the two men lifted the chair a little off the ground, turning it to face Ithelus. The elf noticed the man's legs were covered by a tattered blanket - was he an invalid?
"So," he said, drawing out the word with a wheedling, cunning tone. "What have we here, Bruno?"
"'n elf, boss. Says he wants to talk to you."
"I've never had dealin's with any elves, Bruno. You know that."
"I know, boss."
The man's eyes flicked quickly to Ithelus. He was poorly-shaven, with yellowing teeth, unwashed, greying hair and a protruberant, coarse-skinned nose: his clothes were rather shabby, and he sat hunched in his chair like an old man. Nevertheless, the three big bruisers currently surrounding them seemed to treat him with an air of almost reverential respect.
"So," he repeated. "What's your name, and what do you want with me, Mister Elf?"
“Dietlief Halbermann?” chuckled Kleiner. “Got on the wrong side of the Hounds, have we? That’s common enough in Delberz these days, Mister Elf. Might be best for you just to get over it.”
He squirmed into a slightly more comfortable position in his chair.
“But, I am a man of business, and as you wouldn’t come in here unless you had some kind of business proposition to be makin’, let’s hear it. You want my help. How – and what’s in it for me?”
The corner of Ithelus's mouth twitches slightly. 'Well you see sir, at the moment Halbermann is not the easiest person to clean. First the Hounds need to be stopped, that is why I'm here. I plan to remove the hounds power by catching the criminals who blew up the cathedral, and afterwards....'
He takes a step forward. 'Of course, I'm not exactly a man of strong repute, I can always repay you with my services.'
Ithelus fishes into his sleeve and pulls out a set of lockpicks. 'Well, I can use these fairly well, but more importantly I have access to some pretty nice places...'
He chews his lip,
'Sir, to be brutally honest I have tried to leave this life behind, I have very little wish to involve myself with the underworld again but I realise that you are my best hope.'
“You say you want to catch the men that did for the old temple. They’d be dangerous men, in my ‘pinion. Von Kemperbad says it’s worshippers of the Four what done it, and I’m inclined to believe him. You sure you want to go pokin’ around in their business just to get even with some half-wit guard?”
He clicked his fingers, jerking his head at the man on his right – the bodyguard fetched one of the battered ledgers that littered the room, placing it in Kleiner’s crooked hands. Laying it across his knees, the man opened it, thumbing through the dirty pages until he came to where they began to be blank – realising his free hand was empty, he clicked his fingers again, impatiently repeating the motion until the man brought him a bottle of ink and a frayed quill.
“Ain’t many men in my line of work who can say they’ve got an elf on the books,” he grinned. “It’s a temptin’ offer, Ithelus, and that’s the truth.”
He rolled the ink-bottle in his hand, still holding onto it.
“But I was talkin’ about dangerous men, wasn’t I? Halbermann, he’s got a lot of clout, even if maybe that’s not goin’ to last. Man of business like myself doesn't want to rile the Sergeant up if he can help it, you understand. Ol’ Dort trifled with him, and look where that’s got him. Proud old bugger,” he muttered, viciously. Seeming lost in his thoughts for a moment, he snapped back to Ithelus.
“You din’t answer my other question. You say you want my help. What exactly is it you want me to do?”
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