March 2nd

Zeiss quickly runs at the window and tries to detect the murderer. If he sees him, he will summon Advoc in his path in an attempt to block him. If that fails, Advoc will keep the pursuit. In the case the assassin simply vanished, Zeiss will still summon Advoc who will cast Holy Radiance and seek him out.

As for Zeiss, he will immediately kneel beside the old man and try to keep him alive if it's not too late.

"Help! Bring a white mage! Someone has been attacked!"

OOC:

*Hears the yelling, runs upstairs, watches the scene.*

"Zeiss, get away from him and don't touch anything. Go get help."

ooc:

The assailant appears to have completely vanished, making you immediately think of stealth.  Advoc goes rushing out trying to flush out the stealthed attacker.

Meanwhile, after a barely successful Knowledge: Politics roll, Zeiss realizes he does sort of recognize this individual as one of the various people he'd spotted in the Lady Lightmane's offices back in Holtburg.

About 10 seconds later, those downstairs hear the telltale sounds of a large group of soldiers marching into the inn.  Their leader quickly spots the Innkeeper and pulls him aside to speak quietly with him.

Upon seeing troops march into the inn, Rory's roguish sense tingles, and he immediately heads towards the shouting to investigate. At the sight of an elderly man fatally injured in Zeiss' room, he draws the obvious conclusion.

"Th' cavrees downstairs, thill be march'n'up here any secon'," he spits. "How far down from that window? Nevermind!"

And with that, Rory bumrushes the window in a stupor, open or not, and plummets to the ground below.

Having seen one of the local patrons rush upstairs (somewhat drunkenly), a small group of guards immediately heads for the stairs.  Those upstairs currently can hear them coming rather loudly.

Zeiss clenches his fists, then stands up.

"If we get separated, let's regroup outside of town where we stopped on our way here."

He approaches the window.

"Kolson, could you throw a smoke bomb down the hallway?"

And he jumps outside. Following that, he will do his best to shake off the guards, escaping through the back alleys and avoiding the guards as best as he can. If Advoc is unsuccessful with his attempt to put the assassin out in the open, he will instead coordinate with Zeiss and through their mind link, tell him the guards' position. As soon as Zeiss finds himself alone and in relative security, he will change his clothes for the ones he just bought, dye his hair blond and activate his bracelet of concealment.

The next objective is to regroup with the rest of the party.

OOC:

Javan, who had rushed in front of the party, removed his armor and cleaned himself and the plate from his own blood, decided to peek his head out of his room in order to make heads and tails out of the commotion going on.

"Hey, quiet down, will ya? What is happening any--", the fairy started to talk before he recognized the sound of a large group of people wearing armor approaching, and his brain makes the connection: Things are bad, and there's a good chance the party is involved in it.

He then hurriedly gets hold of an sturdy sack and stuffs it with his granite plate armor pieces, grab his backpack, tower shield and spear and looks outside the window, ready to jump out of it in case his fears become a reality.

OOC:

"Hmm, what?" a sleepy Kolson says as he wanders into the room thanks to Higaide's shouting. The dead body sobers him up fast. "Right, smoke bomb."

He pulls out a smoke bomb and tosses it in the area just before the door. On his way towards the window, he grabs Zeiss' rapier from the dead body before leaping out feet first, sliding down the slanted roof, and using his skills to parkour down to the ground. (If there is no slanted roof, I'll flip up onto the roof and search for a better way down or might just stick to the rooftops if the buildings are close enough.)

Mechanics:

OOC:

Rory goes drunkenly stumbling out the window, slurring as he goes and sliding down the yawning rooftop, somehow miraculously landing completely steady on his feet at the base.  Fortunately, by sheer happenstance, the window he leapt out of was not on the side of the building where the soldiers had entered, and still had some individuals posted.  A moment later Zeiss and Javan plop down on either side of him, where Zeiss has about a second to tell the others his idea to cheese-it when Kolson smashes into all three of them rather loudly, the rapier he was carrying clattering to the ground beside them.  The noise made was quite loud.

did I roll the 1?

I see no action for Higaide so I assume he's standing up there valiantly holding off the soldier's advance.

K wrote:Out the window.

I posted it in the same thread you said you were waiting for everyone to weigh in. I'm not too sure where we're supposed to post anymore, since we've been going back and forth between this and "Plotting a Heist". Unless i was supposed to be more verbose about it.

Higaide jumps out the window.

Shortly after the mess is made by Kolson, Higaide comes lunging out and lands directly on Kolson's back somewhat badly, causing a loud "Oof!!" to be heard.

Rory grips at the ground as he pulls himself up to standing height. "Yeah, you got the thing," he notes, pointing crudely at the rapier. "Tha's good! Oh, they used a smokebomb, wow they mus' be prepared. Le's go to the fire camp where we were last, you know the one! On me guys, le's bail!"

He staggers off toward a backstreet, apparently confident that the rest will follow him.

"Yeah, let's meet there."

And Zeiss follows... his previous plan.

OOC:

Javan felt his spine shouting at him for being reckless earlier that day, in form of incredible sharp pain, when he touches the ground after jumping down. He gasps and let's go of everything he was holding, falling to his knees, face on the ground, both his arms on his back.

The pain was so horrendous that he forgot what he was doing for a few moments, which felt like an eternity to him. When his focus returned to reality, the fairy said, out of breath, to no one in particular, "Damnit all, I'm in no shape to run anyway... Just... do whatever you are going to do. Hopefully these guards won't kill someone who cannot fight back."

*Picks him up.

"Don't count on it. Move!"

ooc:

"Stop! Hurts like--", the fairy starts saying to Higaide, then his breath is cut short by the pain he's feeling once Higaide tries to get him up.

"Curse all the elements, I can't move like this! Just... let... go!", Javan said in a pain-filled voice and teary-eyes to whoever caught him, and tries to get himself away of with all his strength, which in turn intensified the pain and made him shout obscenities.

"....................."

*He looks at the rest of the party.*

"Falling from the roof of an inn hurts and I hate it," Kolson groans before picking himself up off the ground. He spends the next few seconds twisting and turning, making sure that nothing is broken. That is when he notices his hat is gone. Looking around for a few panicked seconds he is pleasantly surprised when said hat floats down from his room and plants itself firmly onto his head. Pulling it off he excitedly exclaims, "Hat! Thought I'd lost you there for a sec." He hugs it before putting it back on and then picks up the rapier. "I'll meet you guys there, just need to do something first."

Hand on his hat, Kolson runs off into the night looking for the nearest body of water to ditch the rapier into. He'll try to take what cover he can in any ally ways or what-have-you and will move as cautiously as he can if not directly pursued.

Suddenly realizing that he is not being followed, Rory enters Stealth mode, trying to emulate some foreign footman on a covert mission as he slinks through alleys toward the edge of town, not daring to return to the inn now crawling with soldiers.

"........................."

*Takes him a bit (about two seconds), but he finally darts off, trying to make himself scarce through whatever dark alleyway he can find.

Higaide slips away quickly, stumbling a bit but after a few quick cautious checks it seems he's not being followed.  Rory manages to slip into an entirely separate alleyway, hiding behind several trash bins and a pile of cargo crates.  Kolson makes his way into yet another alley, doing a beeline for the shore to get rid of the rapier.

Zeiss abandons his comrade Javan and rushes off to quickly stealth and change his appearance, when suddenly he hears a voice mutter "Wait, isn't that the one the army were asking about earlier?"  Turning abruptly, there's an elderly Moarsman woman looking out of her window at him in the alley, curiously.  Realizing he can't change here he sprints off, as she starts yelling for the soldiers to come.

At about this time Javan sees about 8 in-arms-and-armor soldiers come around the inn, expecting a fight and weapons ready.  They spot Javan, frown, but before they can do much else you hear from above a voice in Serpent, after which four of them promptly take off towards one of the alleyways.  The four remaining approach Javan cautiously, expecting a trap, weapons out and readied-actions on him.  One of them speaks to him in Serpent briefly and, assuming no response, switches to Common; "You are under military arrest for questioning.  If you cooperate we will not harm you as per the Dericost Accords.  Do you comply?"

Meanwhile four of the soldiers are barreling after Zeiss, him having been spotted by a surprisingly high Awareness roll from one of the soldiers up on the second story window, and being drawn by the old woman's cries.

Javan responds in a tired voice, "I... huh, military? Uh, sorry, yes, I will comply", and made sure not to move from that spot, although he was unable to stop himself from wincing in pain.

Confident that he can lose the soldiers, Zeiss prepares mentally his next plan. The smoke bomb Kolson gave him would finally find its use. But as he was thinking that, something unusual happened.

For Arch:

Zeiss will find an intersection where he can abruptly turn and be out of sight of the soldiers pursuing him. As soon as he does, he will hastily search for a place to hide the mirror he worked so hard to obtain. If he finds one, he will throw his smoke bomb to buy some time and hide the heirloom. When it's done, he will turn around, put his hands in the air and as soon as he sees the soldiers, say in serpent :

"I surrender myself and, per the Dericost Accords, expect fear treatment as your prisoner."

OOC: