Framed (again)

I already took a lockpick and Arch said I wasn't able to free myself. I would use the acid since we have some time now.

As for the store, I guess we could just visit the Bolt Cutters Ltd across the street. Trade some weapons for it. If any shopkeep gives us guff about you guys being potential criminals and stuff, I can intimidate him into letting us buy if he's not friendly.

The Fry Principle:

I'll just post something to move us along since we're back to planning a whole chunk of actions. Feel free to interject.

I highly doubt these soldiers were in league with the assassins. But I also don't care whether they live or die. *shrug*

The Past is Dead is the correct name for Advoc's Desperation attack. Holy Radiance is one of his regular spells.

One thing I wanted to ask you guys while we're at it: is taking out the assassins who attacked us in Holtburg our long-term goal? I got the feeling that it was, but it would be nice to have the whole party on the same page. Some of you might be like "of course that's our main goal", but I just don't want to assume. The other party is set on the Gaerlan's issue so we're free to focus on anything we want.

If our speculation that assassins=Vyeotians is correct, this would mean that they are a serious threat to Dereth. They assassinated the Undermarket's Middlers the same day war was declared (which implies they also incited a war between the different nations), they attacked a whole village (Janwall) just to kill one remaining Middler, they possess technology that rivals magitek, they attempted to kill Zeiss and Kolson, some of their members are affected by Desolation (and most likely all of their leadership), they attacked the Exchange to attract us in the Sho Empire for another trap and most importantly, they threatened Rory's and Kolson's families.

My guess? They are a group of Desolates that want to take revenge against the world for all the suffering they went through. And they're doing it by being warmongers.

If each party member agrees to take them out, and assuming we do manage to escape from Kinshoi, here's my suggestion: we fast-forward the game for a month of in-character time. I already know I would try to expand the Exchange; Kolson might want to help me? Rory seems interested in the Elemental Temples, so he could go on a trip. Javan could go on a quest to save himself from whatever fate befalls him. Higaide could... huh... help the humans in the docks? Whatever we want to do, we do it and come back together after a month. Of course, we keep making important choices, but it would be in fast-forward mode. While we do this, Zeiss would use the Exchange's resources to follow the only lead we seem to have about the Vyeotians: Segregate, the Desolates' town. Again, I'm only guessing that's where they live but even if they aren't there, I believe that's where their organization started. And to take them out, we would either need to convince a strong organization to help us or expand the Exchange and use its forces to do so. We could also use an indirect approach to solve this problem by curing Desolation, but that still requires a lot of funding and efforts from our part.

If you disagree with my suggestion, don't be intimidated by this wall of text and feel free to share your opinion. I won't feel hurt. I just wanted to ascertain what our long-term goal is and offer a course of action to pursue it.

*transforms into a tornado of butterflies and flies away*

Okay. The temples are a passive priority to Rory, he might visit a temple if it is not out of the way. As for the Vyeotians, think about what he said recently and what it means. Rory wants to wipe them out. Making them go away by curing Desolation is more time-consuming and can be done whenever. He also has a personal stake against them.

Jumping forward might help with my concern that we're just too far behind the live campaign split to catch up when it matters.

I like how you struggled to give my character something he'd want to do, Zeiss.

I'm more focused on the immediate, though. First thing, we should get everyone out of public square, and out of sight in general. Once that's done, we can get to work on those chains. I'll check those guards for any keys, then carry Zeiss or Javan out, whichever Rory doesn't.

Also, i would stabilize any guard that can still be saved. Ideally, i'd take one with us to interrogate, but i tremendously doubt any of these grunts will know anything, when they couldn't even tell who i was when i was right at their doorstep with Advoc the night before. In any case, it's never a waste to show goodwill toward your enemy, and it'll make it harder for them to demonize us in the public eye, something they seem very eager to do (and why this whole mess started to begin with - we still have a diplomatic disaster on our hands).

What i'd really like to get is one of the officers at their little compound. I'd be very interested in knowing how exactly this whole thing was set up. We're fumbling around in the dark here, and are in some desperate need of information. Of course, considering how hard this rescue operation was, i wouldn't expect any kind of success from trying to extract one of them.

I really would like to just free Zeiss and Javan as soon as we can and then go get their stuff back. The mooks don't concern me in any way. I'd rather we didn't take any more time with them than we need to i.e. kill them or leave them Downed. As far as the impending international incident is concerned, I can't trust that these soldiers are uninformed and just doing their job. We're not fighting the military, and I believe we're up against a group impersonating an entire detachment of soldiers.

That would be impractical. Why would you have dozens of grunts in on a secret to push the continent into devastation when it's much easier and safer to have one good agent in a high position that can move all the other unwitting pieces? I'll say it again, the guard last night didn't even know who i and Advoc were. This is as close to a certainty as you get in this setting.

Fine, but if I find that telltale ring on their hands, they're as good as dead, because at that point it becomes mercy killing.

Well then. I guess somebody had to give in.

We made so much progress as players... it brings a tear to my eye... *sniffle sniffle*

By the way Arch, how many soldiers did I kill? I was under the impression I put only two of them into Down status. Just curious.

Fifty hyper-balillion.

Hmm. If they are only worth 1xp each, I would get at the very least one level-up.

*Advoc is already admonishing Zeiss.*

Hmm, did I really need to roll Concentration while pouring acid in a peaceful environment? Zeiss, you can go ahead and pour the acid now if you like, you've got a good Deftness score.

Arch, to make a wiki for your setting is a really good idea. I'll enjoy reading it.

Here, to those who don't know what I'm talking about : http://archengeias.wikia.com/wiki/Archengeia%27s_Wiki

There aren't a lot of entries since it's pretty new.

It would be cool if we could view pages for each character introduced in the campaign, and even player-controlled characters.

One thing at a time. But yes that's the inevitable idea.

The suspense is killing me. Did Javan even survive?

So guys, okay with this next course of actions?

Zeiss explains to you guys our equipment has been taken to the Tipsy Princess, including the marvelous Rainbow, and we should get it back before we leave. Thus I suggest that we retreat towards that tavern to scout it out. Anyone disagrees?

Well we hadn't gotten around to planning that it seems, nobody counted on or predicted that the guards would just bail on the fight. They may have gone to report at the Tipsy Princess. Sure, we should probably scope that out.

Our stealthiest party member has his face known all over the place in those parts (heck, some bystanders knew who he was, a scarce few minutes after the army raided the Inn), so he can't go back there.

Higaide is next in line, and Kolson is the more civilized of the party, though i'm guessing even asking for the gear will raise eyebrows. Then again, wouldn't the army have just confiscated everything?

The Tipsy Princess, which was taken over by the military, isn't the inn where the mysterious elf got assassinated. We never went there (as far as I know anyway).

Archengeia wrote:As the soldiers escort you towards another of the odd devices, you successfully roll Awareness and overhear tidbits of conversation between the Moarsman and one of the following soldiers, the gist of which is that you and the 'assassin' will be paraded through the city streets under ceremonial guard before being shipped with the convoy towards the HQ (wherever that is). You also roll well enough to overhear that they soldiers have claimed a local tavern, the Tipsy Princess, as a temporary outpost and officer's quarters which also happens to be where your and Zeiss' gear is currently stored.

Depending on how many soldiers are there, someone could simply sneak in and out with the equipment. If the soldiers we just escaped from went there to get reinforcements, we might have an easier time to accomplish this retrieval task. We'll have to scout first.

It's pretty useless to plan what we should do when we get there as we have no information about this place. I'm just asking if going to the tavern is something we can all agree on.

I guess.

If we happened to find whoever interrogated you, it'd be awesome if we could nab him too, but that's dreaming way too high, i'm guessing. Those guys would have all gone to ground now.

Well absolutely. You want your stuff back, and I wouldn't want all that weaving to go to waste if it was me. I'm sure Kolson would hate that too. We're right behind you on this.

You guys have me, remember? Let's set a rendezvous now so that Thog remembers, in case we're not in good position or circumstance to explain it to him directly. In order to use him effectively, we must scout first. Now, we can have Zeiss and Higaide both on the job.

Right now, I would like for us to take 10 for an Awareness check to see if we hear the tanks moving. I don't know how far away they are, but they must make a lot of noise when they move, right? We could know for sure whether the tanks moved to guard the Tipsy Princess.

Okay, we set a rendezvous point near the Tipsy Princess for our "Retrieve Inventory" mission in case we get separated on our way to the tavern. We also set a second rendezvous point in a discreet part of town which we all know about in case the mission goes south.

Does anyone have a cloak in their inventory me and Javan could wear? Or anything really.

I don't think we need to use that smoke bomb Zeiss. There was no one else there but us.