Welcome to the 12th day of Dice-ember.
Yesterday saw a few of the local players farewell a close friend as he leaves for New Zealand in the next chapter of his life with a Warhammer (Age of Sigmar v3)tournament. Taking Skaven, the insanely brilliant rat-people who dwell below most of civilisation, I didn’t expect much let alone 3 close games (out of the 3 games had) where I managed to scrape out a win with two for them and a very close loss. The issue being with a condensed day that each game was limited to around 2.5 hours (and in some cases only 2 hours) so each game finished where there was still a lot more fighting to be had. This resulted in my winning one game and losing one game where if we had played them out to the completion of the game I probably would have lost the game I won and won the game I lost. So going 2/1/0 put me tied for first place, or second depending on how you look at it.
So moving onto Dice-ember content today I have the introduction to one of the silent members of the Halflings Party who serves as the parties eyes, ears and silent scout.
Locus
14Locus
Her breath formed a small puff of mist as she leant against the roofbeams using her climbing claws to hold her in place.
“Here you are, as promised. Twelve of Carters finest” a well built man said as he approached the table that Locus had positioned herself to be able to view straight on.
“What are we talking about exactly here Tyson,” a softer voice came from the matron of the establishment “last thing we had that came from Carter almost had us closed down when word got out about the nightlight that he provided us” the lady spat, the acidity in her voice mimicking the acrid smell coming from the substance she was smoking.
“Ladies, Mary, I had nothing to do with the guard finding out about the last drop. This time we have high quality shade mist, just a drop of this hitting the ground will cause anyone near by to fall unconscious and not remember a thing. Potent stuff, harmless if you take the antidote before hand though” the smug man, Tyson, spoke well and confidently like he was delivering a sales pitch that had been rehearsed many times.
Bingo. Locus needed one of those vials for the plan to work. Moving forward and shifting her form slightly in only the way that a changeling could she moved forward to get a better look at the goods. Twelve crates were laid out next to the man, stacked one by one on top of each other.
“Show us what you’ve got and name your price” The woman named Mary said, movement next to her belonging to one of her two girls that looked over her as bodyguards.
Cracking the top crate open Tyson pulled out several non-descript vials of a lavender coloured liquid, passing one to one of his the people he came with, this one a burly half-orc who handed the vial to the mirrored bodyguard of Mary.
Looking outside through the loosened boards where she got through Locus waited for the telltale call that was to serve has her signal.
“Boss!” a young girl slammed the door open as she ran into the room “The guard are coming, we had a runner come in saying that they are a block away”
Swearing Mary gestured for the door and her girls left. “You three stay here, it won’t do well to have Carters men found here with a crate of that stuff let alone twelve of them” Nodding Carters men moved to take position where they could easily hide.
Knowing that she didn’t have much time he had to move quickly, the fake runner, Kane, wouldn’t be believable for long especially when no guards show up. Shifting into the form of a Tabaxi she met once a long time ago she crawled down the wall and crept towards the desk where a single vial of the shademist lay.
As she reached the desk she heard a gasp of alarm.
“Boss, I saw sumfin over there. By the desk.” the half-orc spoke in a hushed voice.
“Quiet!” Tyson said with perhaps a bit too much enthusiasm “Go check it out but be quite about it, you think Carters bad when you make a mess of thing. They don’t call her bloody Mary for no reason.”
As the heavy footsteps from thick leather came her way Locus panicked and looked around for something could do to use as a diversion. Nothing was in reach behind the desk so she started to pat down the bags, trinkets, holsters and pouches she had on her person.
‘Knife, no. I can’t leave a trace that I was here. Poison, too slow working and there is at least three of them. Ah that may work’ she thought as her fingers touched the various object on her person and settling on a old weathered bag that held a few trinkets of minor power she had collected over some time. Reaching in she grabbed two little clay figurines, one had the appearance of a cat the other a rat. Speaking a command word, quietly, under her breath she placed them on the ground as the clay swelled and formed into to living animals. One cat, one rat. With a terrified squeak the rat ran for the wall and the cat gave chase running from behind the table and towards the wall where a few crates and barrels rested.
“Just a cat and rat..” The half-orc sighed with relief and the sound of his footsteps could be heard as he moved towards the door and a little alcove next to it where Tyson and his companion were hiding.
Locus took this moment to snatch the vial and position herself so she could make a dash for the wall and dislodged planks of wood to make her escape, she just needed to make sure that they wouldn’t look this way.
Then the door opened.
“False alarm, guards didn’t come this way. Where were we. Arrrgh!” Mary shrieked as a large rat and eagre cat ran past her and down the stairs. Multiple voices could be heard shouting in alarm at the sight of the rat and cat running down the stairs and hall. Taking this a as good as time as any Locus dashed to the wall on her soft padded feet and climbed up the wall using her tabaxi claws to dig into the wood. Looking back as she made it into the rafters to make sure she wasn’t seen she quietly lifted the wood planks and slipped outside where she reassumed her normal appearance and lifted her hood more to hide her figures.
Jumping from rooftop to rooftop she didn’t give any thought of the guard partrol that was walking in the direction of the building she just left.
Well that’s all we have for tonight. Thanks for joining me for another Dice-ember day upload and I hope that I will see you all back tomorrow as well.
As I mentioned in yesterdays upload I simply ran out of time (and brain juice) to write to the standard I try to hold myself to, so you can check out yesterdays updated post here (Dice-ember day 11) where I filled in some of the journal entries that were taken from Albazhar’s journal and published as a new book.
Don’t forget to come back tomorrow for more content, or to let me know if something you read here inspires you for your own game or story – I would love to hear about how it goes! And as always, don’t forget to roll with advantage,
The Brazen Wolfe
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