Heroica RPG - Quest #40: The Strivvian Job

[Zepher]

"Actions of the past have ramifications and rewards. That's the point." Boomingham says to the party in general, though Atramor is no longer there. He marches off towards the guard at the bottom of the wooden structure to the left, waving his hand for Ellaria to follow him.

[Sandy]

Ellaria follows suite, and goes as far as grabbing Boomingham's arm. When they approach the guard, she points onto the stage and loudly exclaims:

"Daddy daddy, I want THAT one!"

She can only hope that the drunkard of a knight plays along with her.

[Zepher]

"Well, dear, if you remember to feed the dog, perhaps we'll get you a slave of your own as well. But I don't want it dying, and Helvetia knows that Rover's been on death's doorstep more than once." Boomingham rolls his eyes for the guards benefit. Rover? Where was that name from again?

"Kids, am I right? Say, where are these fellows from? I like to make sure my girl here interacts with worldly people, further her brain and what not. I'm Barty, by the way." Boomingham offers his hand.

[Sandy]

"Yes, I want my slaves sophisticated but burly enough to handle a few bites from dear Rover" Ellaria explains to the guard. "No hillbillies or barbarians for me, I prefer well-behaved cityfolk. Got any of those?"

[Waterbrick Down]

Skrall offers a departing groan at Boomingham's last comment before he trails Ellaria, "The sins of the father shouldn't effect the treatment of the son." Skrall sidles in closer to the crowd trying to over hear the bidding.

[Scubacarrot]

The guard under the scaffolding says to Boomingham and Ellaria:

"Don't know about any of that, sir, ma'm. I'm just here to keep things civil and safe, I'm not with the slavers. The auction is supposed to start soon, though."

A few people give angry looks to Skrall, as the large ogre blocks their view of the stage. Meanwhile, Atramor makes his way over to the other side, and adresses the man in pink, who stops in his conversation:

"Eh? Yes... Very interesting... Have we met?"

Before Atramor can answer, the words of the guard ring true, as the man on the stage in the red shirt speaks up:

"Welcome, and thank you for coming. My name is Blackhawk, and my friends on the left and right are shorty, and ugly." This sparked a small chuckle among the crowd, Blackhawk continued: "It will be as follows, we will sell these three slaves this morning, have a break, handle the finances, and then sell the others we have lined up for you in the afternoon, and let me tell you something, the line up is good. We are the only seller today, folks, so keep tight. Rodrigo's Refreshments cart will come be here, so you have nowhere to go, am I right? Hah. You know how this works, we have a starting bid set up prior to this, raise hands to bid, 10 gold between bids, vocal bids are allowed, standard gold as payment only. If I don't see your bid, it does not count, simple as that. Any slaves not sold go to the mines or quarries for cheap, so you know what to do, bid! Alright then, let's do this."

On Blackhawk's mark, the orc in armour unchains the first slave, the blonde woman, Blackhawk holds her by the hand, spins her around, and continues:

"First up, we have this lovely woman. She was born into slavery, completely obedient, a treasure, for every household. Look at her! Her last owner did not require another slave, that's why she's sold now that she's an adult. Bidding starts at 500, anyone?"

Immediately, a woman on the second row before the stage raises her hand to indicate she bid, which Blackhawk notes. Does any of the party want to do something? If they want to, they'd have to be quick.

[Sandy]

"Damn it!", Ellaria hisses at Boomingham. "Let's try the same approach to the slaver near the cage."

Ellaria continued faking the role of a needy daughter. "No, daddy! I don't want any slutty women, I want men! Muscular studs who can protect me from the coldness of the night!"

[Zepher]

"Er, yeah, well since its your birthday, daddy will get you anything you want, dear," Boomingham says as he circles the stage with her and looks at the slaves. Something feels wrong. Zoe said not to do anything...

"This is a message from both your old god and your fake god. We'll discuss that little mistake later. Stop this auction, Lawrence." The voice was quiet, in his head. Boomingham glances around but sees nothing.

"Why'd you come back here?!" Boomingham whines.

"Because this city is rotten and you can fix it."

"Buzz off," Boomingham tells him, and yet he still uncorks a bottle of mead and downs it. He glances over at tall Skrall, and then at Atramor, near-by. Nyx was lost in the crowd. "What have you got for my daughter?" he demands of the slaver.

[Waterbrick Down]

Skrall watches as the spectacle unfolds in front of him, he glares down at those giving him dirty looks, a slight growl eminating from his throat.

"What to do? Can't fight 'em off, too many of 'em. Perhaps if we can convince the folks not to buy from the slaver's we'll have a chance at settin' 'em free on their way to the quarries?" he silently thought to himself. Skrall moves over to the Minotaur in the crowd.

"Mornin'. This Blackhawk's a new one to me, where's the rest of his competition, I was expectin' a bigger selection of sellers today."

Skrall listens to the rest of the slaver's speech.

"Any idea how honest he is about his goods?"

[Scubacarrot]

Boomingham and Ellaria walk to the other side, where they speak against the Weredog wielding the curved sword. Ellaria's and Boomingham's play gets one response out of him:

"Blackhawk explain. Follow auction. I no business, I slice bad slave or bad customer. Go."

The Minotaur takes a short look at Skrall, before answering:

"They usually sell when they got enough wares, Blackhawk's alright, been around long. I'm trying to follow the auction, got my eye on the orc, excuse me." The Minotaur now ignores Skrall.

Meanwhile the bids for the female slave have risen to 530 gold, First a dwarf on the front row bid, then a man to the back wearing a red turban, and then the woman who bid first, who still holds the highest bid...

[Zepher]

OoC: I'm sorry if we're missing something Scuba. If you're feeling like we aren't getting the objective, you can have Zoe yell at us a little...

Boomingham taps Atramor on the shoulder and waits for him to turn around before addressing the two heroes with him. "Listen, we're not making any headway here. This is ridiculous. We can't allow this auction to continue, these could be our men but no one seems willing to talk, and I for one am not going to allow these poor slaves to be bought. Maybe I'm fighting an ailment of a bigger disease, but I plan to fight it anyway. Ellaria, I need you to go tell Skrall to wait for my mark, then you take Rufindel and get out of here. I'm not having you two hurt, and if I get captured or killed, I'd rather have some people unmarked so as to continue to mission. On your way out, tell Zoe to come speak to me here. If she wants me to not do this, she can outline a specific reason why not, and a better solution. Atramor, I'll leave it up to you if you want to stay or not. Same goes for Nyx, if anyone runs into her. If battle starts, I'm sure she'll know if she wants to stand by me or get out of here." Boomingham glanced at the huge Ogre, his eyes screwed up, his eyebrows raised. "Something tells me Skrall will be willing to stand by me, but perhaps not. We shall see. Atramor, if you don't want to stick around, I'll need one of your bombs. I'd like to start this battle with a bang. Point is, unless Zoe makes a very compelling argument along with a real course of action... I'm not standing for this auction any longer."

[Scubacarrot]

The dwarf that bid earlier raised the bid up to 550 gold. Suddenly, Zoe stood behind Boomingham, and whispered:

"These guys have obviously been doing this for longer than today. The place is well guarded. There's no way you can reach the stage or the caged slaves unnoticed. If you want to do something for these slaves, I suggest you buy the ones you might be able to afford. Otherwise, you can try the frontal assault. Stupid idea, but there you go. Don't overcomplicate things, remember our objective."

[Waterbrick Down]

"Hmmm. The orc looks like a friend of mine I used to know. I may have to give you a run fer yer money Minotaur." Skrall trods over to Boomingham. "As much as I ain't fer it, I think we should let the girl go. She isn't one of the ones we're after and she probably don't feel any worse fer bein' a slave as that's all the life she's ever known. I think we need to wait fer when some of the other men get up on the block."

[CMP]

Atramor turns to glance at Boomingham, then at Zoe, then rolls his eyes.

"Boomin'ham, don't think you're the only one here that disproves of this crap. Where I come from, there's hardly any slaves, but I've personally known several. It's a meager life, but it can be dealt with; do you honestly wanna make 'em fugitive, escaped slaves? The hell do we do with them once we've freed 'em? If they're recaptured, thing's'll get ten times worse for 'em. Does the lawful, Paladin party leader want to single-handedly screw over our entire mission, a buncha' innocent slaves, and us, if we get overwhelmed? Would ya' lead us to ruin?"

Another voice followed his, to Atramor's surprise.

"I vaguely recall a story of another senseless maverick going against the odds to do what's right. You told it, you're well aware of how such a venture would end."

McCafferey clucked quietly once and fell to silence after sharing her own sentiment.

Edited November 19, 2012 by CallMePie

[Zepher]

Boomingham spits on the ground. "Should have known you two would let the slavery continue. Fine, I won't do a thing. Let's wait around until one of the men show up, see what background Blackhawk gives about them."

[Waterbrick Down]

"I ain't fer all of this yer majesty, but I ain't fer my head on a pike either. Ya can have yer morals an' all Paladin, but don't expect that of the rest of us. If ya order me to charge the stage I will, but I ain't doin' it out of any moral obligation." Skrall hisses under his breath, he looks again at the orc in chains. Was he really just going to leave him like that? For all he knew, the orc could have committed some horrible crime and was just serving out his sentence.

Edited November 19, 2012 by Waterbrick Down

[Sandy]

"This is getting ridiculous, I must say", Ellaria hissed. "We don't even know if the missing guards are being sold here. Did we even get a confirmation that they were sold as slaves in the first place? We have other objectives as well, such as finding the missing archeologist, going to that marked spot on the map, and doing whatever that divinity called Pseudos wants us to do. As much as I want to save these people from slavery, we cannot afford them, and attacking the guards up front will just make us fail our quest.

Zoe, if you don't recognize any of these slaves as the missing watchmen, then I say we should leave, and perhaps come back later to see if the situation has changed."

[Scubacarrot]

"No. I haven't seen any of them."

Meanwhile, the bids on the women had continued to rise, and eventually she was sold off to the women who had started bidding, for an amount of around 700 gold. Zoe remarked:

"That's a lot of coin, but is it a lot for a human life?"

Blackhawk quickly had the next slave unchained and brought next to him, he started speaking:

"I'd say that was a succesful auction. Next up, this big fella, Orc, Steelaxe clan. Slave since youth. His tongue doesn't work, so he does not speak. He is sold because his previous mistress died - of natural causes -" This sparked another laugh from the crowd. "He has the skills for all kinds of household jobs, but you'd probably want to use him as a silent, mysterious bodyguard, am I right? Bidding starts at 250 gold."

Almost immediately, the bid was raised to 300 gold, does the party want to anything? If they want to, they'd have to be quick.

[CMP]

"Steelaxe...huh. Ain't that the same clan that orc from the town guards' prison was in?" Atramor remarked to Nyx and Rufindel. "Of course, he could speak perfectly fine (save for that orc speech they often use) and wasn't a slave..."

[Zepher]

"I agree with Ellaria. I don't think I can stomach much more of this. If you all are unwilling to attack, and Zoe doesn't recognize these slaves, we'll head off to that marked spot on the map. No reason to stick around if we're not doing anything of importance here."

[CMP]

"Aren't we goin' to this Grey Tower in the Blacksmith District first, to check out crates or somethin'?"

[Zepher]

Boomingham raises an eyebrow. "The map is a concrete lead. The crates were found by the town guard. They haven't done us much use yet." Boomingham glances over at Zoe. "You don't suppose any of these slaves might be Mortimor... do you?"

[Waterbrick Down]

Skrall glances again at the orc, "Probably didn't deserve it." He looks to see who he is bidding against before barking out "310"

[Scubacarrot]

"How should I know if any of the slaves are Mortimer?"

Skrall saw that the Minotaur bid, but did not hold the highest bid right now, that was a gnome on the front row. Before Skrall realizes it:

"Sir on the first row, 400 gold? Who bids? "

[Waterbrick Down]

"Sir on the first row, 400 gold? Who bids? "

OoC: So does that mean someone raised it to 400? It's somewhat unclear as the auctioneer sounds like he's asking someone to bid 400.

Skall could just see the tip of the Gnomes hat, "410"