Live in Infamy

"Getting through the gates is only step one," you offer, trying not to look at the ogre and his grisly meal, "We'll need supplies - food, warm clothes, money."

"A good point," Lisara nods, "Dorgo, let's see what the kitchens have to offer. Mikael, if you could check the barracks? And, ah, Grumblejack?"

"Mm?" The ogre looks up at her, blood dripping down his hairy chin.

"See if you can break into the armoury," Lisara says, swallowing briefly at the sight, "We'll do better for weapons. Valka…"

"I'll check the office," you say briskly, already moving. You'd have gone there regardless, because if there is one thing you've never been able to leave well enough alone, it is a mystery. The staff and equipment you have seen at Branderscar has been woefully insufficient for a place of its reputation, and you have to know where the money has been going. It's the same curious tenacity that made your name as a bookkeeper, and ancestors willing it will help you now.

The first door on the main hall is labelled 'office', and at first everything inside seems entirely unexceptional. There's a cluttered desk, a series of shelves piled high with various record books and archived missives, and of course the usual series of maps, notices and general reminders pinned to the various walls. It takes you a moment to find what you're looking for, but then you have the latest budget report in your hands.

Article:

Valka tests Lore: Accounting! DC is 15, roll is 8+7 = 15, success!

Well. Sergeant Tomas Blackerly might just be the single greediest idiot you've ever encountered. It takes you all of a minute to identify a dozen different fraudulent transactions in the records - wages paid to guards with painfully generic names, food you know they didn't serve, repair fees that repeat every three months - and you have to assume the only reason nobody else has caught him is that the people receiving these reports have never actually been to Branderscar in person. This isn't someone skimming a little off the top, this is someone embezzling the Kingdom for ten times his own annual salary.

(In the corridor outside, wood splinters and metal groans as Grumblejack kicks in the armoury door. You wince and keep reading.)

That said, there's nothing in the records to indicate what he's done with the money either. You close the record and leave it on the desk, heading into the adjourning room. At first glance it too is normal, a set of private quarters for the head of the local guard, a bit messy and disorganised but otherwise unexceptional…

Article:

Velka tests Perception to Seek! DC is 10, d20+7=12, success.

Velka tests Thievery! DC is 15, d20+5+1= 12, fail.

Until you look under his bed and find a heavily locked strongbox hidden underneath a spare sheet. The lock is too complex for you to pick open in the time you have available, but just tilting it slightly produces the sound of bottled liquids and the clink of a great number of coins. Smiling sharply, you grab the sergeant's own travelling pack from the wardrobe and load the box into it, strapping it across your back with a grunt. Then you go in search of the others.

"Ah, there you are," Lisara says briskly, sheathing a rapier she appears to have liberated from the now open armoury. Next to her, Grumblejack is strapping on a set of hardened hides with a distressingly cheerful expression, an absolute monster of a halberd propped up against the wall nearby. "Find anything?"

"Blackerly's private retirement fund," you say briefly, because you don't care to lie absolutely but there's no sense in revealing just how much coin you are now carrying around a collection of murderers, "Should be good for a bribe or two."

"Excellent," Lisara says with an approving nod, picking up a wooden shield and tossing it to you as the others emerge from the mess hall behind her with a sack almost groaning with stolen food. "Let's go, then, before we push our luck any further."

It may already be too late for that, because as soon as Lisara puts a hand on the main door and begins to push, a crossbow bolt lodges in the wood mere inches from her hand with a murderous thump.

"Give it up, prisoners!" The cruel voice of Sergeant Blackerly echoes from outside, even as Lisara curses and pulls her hand back, "There's no way out!"

"Piece of… no," Lisara mutters angrily, shaking her head, "He's addressing us, not the warden, which means the old man isn't here yet. This is still our best window."

"Good enough for me," Mikael nods sharply, and without another word throws the double doors open and lunges into the courtyard. He gets five paces before being beset by a pair of snarling hounds, and everything goes immediately to hell.

You lose track of events almost instantly. Everything is blades and shouts and the angry buzz of crossbow bolts, and it is all you can do to hold the borrowed shield up before you like a talisman and edge your way across the courtyard. You cast a bolt of shifting anti-space that folds one of the hounds in two, skirt around a swirling brawl in the middle of the courtyard, curse your short legs as the others pull away…

"Valka!" Lisara calls out to you, her voice sharp and panicked, and you glance over to see her drawing her rapier out of Tomas Blackerly's greedy heart. The sergeant did not, it seems, go down easy - on the ground next to him, Mikael lies in a heap, hands grasping blindly at a sucking gut-wound. "Valka, help him!"

For one terrible moment you hesitate. Ahead you can see Dorgo throwing open the heavy wooden gates, blood pouring down his dark green skin as he ignores the crossbow bolt sticking out of his shoulder, and you could escape now, it would be so easy…

Cursing your ancestors and all their progeny you turn and hurry over to your fallen comrade. Lisara is already kneeling at his side, her slender hands wet with blood, and with a growl you point out where to apply pressure as you pull out bandages and coagulant creams. Crossbow bolts fly past you, but the three of you are in the shadow of a great fountain in the middle of the yard, the imposing stone form of some old Talirean hero giving you cover from the men who serve his king. There is an inscription on the base, shining in the sun.

Thus is Justice Done.

"Got it!" You snarl, tying off the bandage and smacking the pale-faced Mikael across the cheeks, "That'll hold you for now, so…"

"Time to go, little ones!" Grumblejack the ogre roars, scooping you up into his broad arms, and just like that you are off and running.




The flight down the bridge is scarcely less chaotic, a headlong flight along a dangerously narrow passage as waves crash below and bolts hiss through the air around you. Lisara cries out at one point and nearly falls, Dorgo grunts with pain… and then you are out of range, crossing the bridge proper, heralded by the distant calls of alarm horns.

"No way through," Grumblejack growls angrily, still carrying you in his hairy arms, and at the end of the bridge you see what he means. The gatehouse there is more like a small fort in its own right, equipped with a heavy portcullis and built flush against the bridge. You could perhaps use the window from the veil to make a way through, but already you can see more guards emerging from within, hear yet more horns blowing in the main castle behind you, and you know there is not enough time.

"Jump!" you call, gesturing to the side of the bridge, "Into the water!"

Grumblejack obeys instantly, or perhaps was already intending to jump, and a moment later you are airborne. The howling wind steals your oath of surprise, and the water smacks you like a hammer.

Article:

Valka tests athletics to swim! DC is 10. Roll is 9. Six rounds of air left.

Second test is 19. Success!

Swimming from the middle of the bridge was by far the safest option. Anywhere else would have had Valka contend with sharp rocks, riptides and other perils.

You don't so much swim to shore as flail wildly until the waves and currents carry you there, but eventually you feel sand beneath your feet and are able to stagger up out of the waves to the rocky beach. You are battered, bruised, exhausted… and free.

"Good to see you made it," Lisara says, breathlessly. The elf is currently sprawled out on the beach like a dying fish, while beyond her you can see the rest of your little band picking themselves out of the surf with equal degrees of stress. Only Grumblejack seems to have found the swim to shore invigorating instead of exhausting, and he hums cheerfully to himself as he hauls the half-conscious Mikael out of the waves. "Where now?"

Groaning, you force yourself upright and stagger up the shore. Ahead of you is the coast road, one of the best maintained in the Kingdom, and beyond that… the Varyston Moors. Several hundred square miles of dark, stinking salt marshes, filled with brackish water and clouds of stinging insects. Somewhere out there is the old road with the manor house that Tiadora spoke to you of, where your mysterious benefactor waits for a meeting… but to your slight surprise, the woman herself is nowhere to be seen.

The choice, it seems, is yours.

Article:

How do you proceed?

[ ] Seek the Manor
You are forsaken by Mitra and condemned to death by Talingarde, and even now soldiers will be preparing to hunt you down. You need sanctuary, and you need allies, both of which the manor promises to provide.

[ ] Turn Aside
- [ ] Suggest another destination (optional write-in)
You know nothing of this mysterious benefactor, save that they doubtless have their own agenda and would have you place your fate blindly in their hands. You have food, clothes and a chest full of gold, and you will decide your own destiny.