Framed (again)

Oh, no. If my elaborate planning and such made it sound like we were going to set the plan in motion once the convoy starts moving, I apologize. I just want us all set up and ready with clarity on when to act and what signs to look for.

We don't actually know where the equipment is yet, so I think we should go find Zeiss and Javan first so that they can inform us after their rescue.

Thank you Zeiss.

Okay, let's finalize our equipment list and then get cracking on the leg work of this plan.

Equipment List

Talking Stones
2 Barrels of Pitch
6 buckets with 6 brushes
Hoverstone
Fireworks (9 sparklers and 9 noise makers; I figure three apiece for each of us)
Two Lengths of 60 ft rope
4 iron daggers
1 iron spear

@Everyone: If you want anything else now's the time to ask for it while it's free.

@Arch: Can we get some wire cutters too? How about two grappling hooks? And some lockpicks for Zeiss. Also, how hard would it be to give darkvision to the binoculars on a per charge basis? Like say 1 charge for 20 minutes of darkvision. Can I weave it in time for the mission?

-----------------------------------------

What we still need:

1. Horses

2. Escape Route, preferably a ship leaving posthaste.

Note: Possible lead from the smugglers.

3. Scouting--We need an entry point, a perch for me, at least 2 exit strategies, and 2 fallback points.

Rory and me and get the horses and try to find a ship. I figure K can do the scouting again. Will that work for everyone?

If we can get it done, I'd rather hit them in the early morning an hour before sunrise.

Rory already bought five horses. And from what Arch told us, I have the feeling they are parading us through town right now, though you don't know that. I think it's the middle of the day.

I think we could visit with said smugglers and request provision/knowledge of an escape route leading to the docks, and barter with the smugglers/captain for passage for 5 people(I assume Aspects ride for free) at the desired time.

I think you could manage on your own, Kolson. I already bought horses, but I'm willing to split the cost for the chores listed above, so for story purposes, you may borrow all of my money and take it with you. I could go with Higaide on scouting. I have about half as much stealth as him, but I have a substantial Awareness total almost matching his, minus the bonus he gets from equipment. This would also make the first scout more comfortable taking more risks if accompanied by a second.

@Rory OH. I thought we just talked about it. Eh, saves time. I'll see about the escape route then.

@Zeiss If that's true you guys are hosed. Just saying.

1 pair wirecutters, 3 standard lockpicks (no bonuses), and 2 grappling hooks. Done.

As for the Weaving check, I'll say that's a Medium difficulty, with a CHANCE to destroy the binoculars if failed but you'd have to roll pretty low for that.

Thing is, when it comes to stealth, the fewer the better, if i've learned anything. So yeah, whatever scouting there is to do, i should probably do it by my lonesome.

@K and Rory I'm with K on this one. Besides, I could use a bodyguard with the smugglers. The only thing I trust criminals to be is criminals and I'd rather not risk being grabbed without backup. There is a very real possibility they may try to turn us in for some kind of reward.

@Arch Let's do it then. Weaving +23. I'll do it after I meet with the smugglers to try to secure an immediate ship out of town.

Diplomacy +19 and Deception 4 (for lie detecting). If they ask why they should help us I'll suggest they consider it the interview for future work. Also, feel free to level us up soon so I can continue training Deception. :p

Final Equipment List

Talking Stones
2 Barrels of Pitch
6 buckets with 6 brushes
Hoverstone
Fireworks (9 sparklers and 9 noise makers; I figure three apiece for each of us)
Two Lengths of 60 ft rope + 2 grappling hooks
4 iron daggers
1 iron spear
1 pair of wirecutters
3 standard lockpicks

Alright then, I'll come with you. I'll keep that in mind next time.

Kolson successfully weaves the binoculars to have 10 Charges of 30 minutes of Darkvision through the Binoculars.

*suddenly, Kolson loses a level to a sparkly vampire's level drain abilities!*

Ahem. The smugglers you manage to find run a fairly decent sized ship, a schooner named the Coral's Greed, which is willing to sail you anywhere along the east coast for an amount dependent upon how far you want to go (it evens out to about 6 silver per mile). They are suspicious to the point where they were willing to refuse your request, especially given the current rumor-mill going around with the Sho Military's presence in the otherwise unremarkable port, but a successful Diplomacy check persuades them. You are fairly certain you can trust them only as much as you would any other mercenary; which is to say, not much.

No, not the sparkly vampires--my only weakness! :p

Alright then, thank you. We are now on the clock folks. The more time we leave them to figure out what is going on the more likely we'll face betrayal. So let's do this.

K, how did your scouting go?

I hope it went great, but gotta ask the GM.

Arch, how did my scouting go?

I feel like I already answered this... maybe I just never got around to it. Been busy lately. Anyways, to summarize cuz I'm in a huge hurry today (2 recording sessions and 1 stream): As of the 'now' you have caught up to Zeiss and Javan are currently being paraded through the more populated areas of town with 6 armored Sclavi and 1 uniformed Moarsman. You don't learn anything else more about the hovervehicles on the west end of town.

So basically not well.

So folks, what do you want to do? A rushed rescue is very much out of my comfort zone (I've walked away from situations like this when I played less moral characters) so I'll leave it up to you. Do we let this play out and then hope to rescue them after or do we hit them now with no meaningful setup and an improvised plan?

Just saying, I thought you guys were gonna have to rescue me and Javan from these 7 soldiers AND the tanks. I'm much more hopeful right now.

And I won't say how you should do this rescue since both Zeiss and Advoc cannot voice their opinion. Too-te-loo.

If we can so much as get to and free them, escape might be easier considering we can get lost in the crowd. I'm still worried about a possible ambush, but if we could get, say, Thog to charge in there, get those two, then Exit out with the Materia, i think it might work.

Or we could sneak in through the crowd, get close enough, smoke-bomb the guards and get Z&J out.

Or we could do the same thing, except put Rory to sleep once we got close enough, then smoke-bomb the guards while Thog does his thing, then Exit Z&J with the materia while the stealthier members of the party make their way out manually. Or we could have Thog carry them out, considering how fast he is.

Catch is, we're gonna have to wake Thog in advance, explain the plan, get Rory back on the line, sneak in with him, then get Thog back, in order for it to work properly. Gonna need some powerful sleeping agent to pull that off on the time we have.

Still, i still think there's more on the line here than just our party members. If the Sho get to make their grand parade, they'll be able to go public with that murder on the moral high-ground, and we'll be that much closer to open war, with Airships that have the potential to turn the continent into the Cursed Earth.

So yeah, i think it's important to do this, in order to salvage this situation as best we can.

Thoughts?

I think this has just gone, via time and events, from fighting the tanks to fighting the soldiers instead. It's too close for comfort that the Vyeotians are parading them, considering what we know about Sho politics. They will put on a public show and most likely kill them, but if not "kill" we can assume that it will be something almost as bad.

We will have to deal with the 7 soldiers first, no matter what. Since Thog remembers everything I remember, you can simply explain the entirety of it to me in one sitting, force the tusker out, and have him remember, even the stuff I say. Arch said it's as easy as that. Transforming into a tusker should send the crowd into a panic. However, we shouldn't forget about the glowing tusker we killed in the Aphus Lassel sanctuary. I transformed during that fight, sure, and the aim was to keep everyone from dying, but we're talking about 7 Fighters, and the Vyeotians aren't too concerned with keeping their own people alive for story purposes.

I really could be the best option, unless the stuff for Kolson's plan can be easily repurposed for a new one. Some important stuff to know before we do, though:

We need just a little more time to set up the stage for Thog to recall everything in one neurocluster, and for giving me knockout medicine and waiting for me to sleep(and then slapping me awake), but you will need enough sleep medicine for the Tusker to go to sleep again, so that I can board the ship.

Once I'm asleep though, I'll be asleep for a while, thanks to the amount of medicine that's in my body. And I'm just thinking of this now, but even then, when I do wake up, my immune system will hate me.

Alternatively, we could use that gem of levitation to just dump the pitch on the whole cluster. After that we will have to be very careful not to light it on fire. We will also hae to call out Zeiss' and Javan's names for responses to distinguish them. If we can simply get them out of the way, we could threaten the soldiers with a fire spell. Rory would be perfect, because not only does he have the intimidation score for it, but he wouldn't be lying, either.

I don't think these seven soldiers are members of the assassins/Vyeotians.

The rest of the party also know that Javan can jump like a Dragoon (unless he was restrained in such a way that he can't) and Zeiss can fly for something like 30 seconds. I'm sharing this information, just in case.

If I were leading the ambush, it would amount to straight-up bull rushing + fire scare tactics(fire on sticks because crowded area), and "Tusker to the rescue". I'm sorry we can't add any more to it, but we are following your lead, Kolson.

Sorry guys, I've been distracted with holiday and personal responsibilities. I'll be able to pick it back up next week.

Not to put a damper on things but what are we going to do about their gear? It's still in the tavern the officers took over for their own use. Want to split up and rescue the gear at the same time? And for that matter, how have we been putting Rory to sleep so Thog can come out?

Zeiss will definitely want to save his furry ball.

Some kinda sleeping weed, i think. At least, it's what happened back near the Light Temple, if i'm not mistaken. Problem is, i believe Thog needs a much bigger dose than Rory.

Although, If Rory hasn't slept in some twelve-odd hours or so, he might be able to fall asleep just by removing his ring. You know, the one that enables him to get only one hour of sleep per day. We need Arch to tell us what's what, regarding that mechanic.

We'll still need some sleeping weed in order to put Thog back to sleep, since there's no way we'll be able to sneak him out otherwise. Or he can just bolt off at Tusker Speed (maybe carrying Zeiss and Javan), if that's an option, but we'll still need to get Rory back eventually.

As for the gear, i guess it's important, as long as it doesn't compromise getting our people out. Will kinda defeat the purpose if we're caught again because we got greedy. I have decent stealth, but i'm not sure how well i can blend in, considering we're in Sho territory, and i'm a frigging human regardless. Still, the very soldiers guarding the army's base failed to recognize me last night when i was looking them in the face, so maybe i'll be able to walk in roughly unimpeded. I would still have to ask for our stuff at the counter if i mean to play it bogart, though, and THAT would raise some flags. Maybe i can fib my way through, though.

Kolson might be a better choice for that, depending on our approach, and our stats.

Happy Thanksgiving, Kolson.

I thought we were hand-waving the cost of the sedative, but because I have money, I'm feeling generous if that's not the case.

I assumed that we would learn in-character that the gear was at the inn once we rescued Zeiss and Javan, who would tell us where it is. If we do know where it is, I guess we could case the joint. They will most likely stop me when they see me, though, since they saw me bail as soon as I saw them. For that reason, my plan is still on the table.

Kolson and Higaide are the only ones who haven't been seen or captured. Kolson's not good at stealth, and the levitation gem is a one use only, I think. So it'll be up to Higaide if we want to sneak in, grab 'n' run while also rescuing Zeiss and Javan. What's important is that people have heard of Humans and they haven't seen Higaide with Zeiss or acting suspiciously. If worse comes to worse, Higaide will just have to come up with some bullshit reason for being this far south from Aluvia if questioned before grabbing the gear.

If we smash 'n' grab with Thog, he could grab Javan and Zeiss and drop them off near a safe area while everyone else meets up at the tavern in preparation for Thog to just straight up bulldoze through it and create a window of chaos for Higaide and Kolson to snatch the gear. Then we would have to meet up at a new waypoint so that we can have him drink as much sedative as it takes to put him to sleep again, then get on the horses at said waypoint and gallop to the ship. Sounds overly complicated though.

Happy belated Thanksgiving Rory.

Well, I think we should at least try for the gear. But Rory has given me an idea. What's the last thing these puffed up Byzantine mother-f-ers would expect us to do after busting our pals out of this parade?

If you answered attack their base and take our stuff back you got it in one. I'm sick of being everyone's butt monkey so let's show these jerks they can't mess with us before we leave.

We'll smoke bomb the shit out of this "parade," head to the base via back alley, oil attack those tanks, and then smash our way to and from the tavern. Who's with me?

When you say it like that, I can only put my greediness and selfishness aside and yell "hell yeah!"

I would only suggest that we head to the tavern first since Zeiss and Javan might be more useful against these tanks if we get our equipment back.