Tuesday 14th October Asi van Dit - Male Halfling Thief 2 - Adrian McKinnon Finn Finnegan - Male Halfling Thug 2 - NPC Flung Chow Wong - Male Human Monk 2 (FW TF) - Ian Luxton Gavin Scone - Male Human Fighter 1 - Darryl Sherwood Mel Licious - Dwarf Psionicist 1 - Steven Krijnen Polly Ester - Female Human Bard 4 - Andrew Earl DM - Jeff Clendon
"We must find regal avenue to get in Hurst House," mused Flung. "We mus not break raw!"
"Maybe my friends can help," I replied. "The Order of Real is quite resourceful."
So I headed off the the Thieves Guild and got a fake Search Warrant, signed by the Emerald "Captain of the Guard" himself.
Flung was quite happy with the warrant. Better yet, because he knew that Hurst must not know that we had searched his house, we needed to do it completely undetected. Thus there would be no problem with Hurst's guards or staff sighting the warrant and possibly asking awkward questions.
So, disguised as road workers, we bedecked our wagon out in relevant decoration, and watched the place.
I drank a Clairaudience potion and listened all over the building for any unusual noises. There was chatting in the front room: we surmised was guards. In a room at the back, there was snoring. Other than that, complete silence. Both storeys.
A Detect Magic revealed that every single window and door had some kind of magic on it. The chimneys too. This place was a fortress.
It was very quiet. Not many comings and goings. Two people, Lumpkin (the Merchants' Association indentured wizard) and a bodyguard left, and returned later on that day.
Two more guards left. Asi and I followed them discretely
They went to an Inn, "The Sign of the Clover", and took up a room. And here they slept soundly.
We reported this to the group.
Now that it was night, and fearing the Hurst's mansion guards, we decided that maybe Hurst's town offices might be a better place to search for evidence of fraud. So we headed into town into the commercial district. Flung followed reluctantly.
"We mus not break-in," he warned. "That not regal. Search warrant own-ry for Hurst House. Not offices."
"But if the offices just happened to be unlocked, then it is not breaking and entering, right?" I asked innocently.
Flung thought about this for a while: "Guess so."
Sure enough, Asi checked the front door of the Hurst offices. They were unlocked.
"Aren't people stupid, leavin' tings unlocked?" Asi commented wryly.
A few Detect Magics revealed to me a magical front door (after we were inside!) and magical top storey window, but nothing else.
The filing cabinets contained lots of papers. Transactions, bills of sale, invoices, packing slips, and other financial instruments. We had to find evidence of fraud. How do you do that in a quick scan? Shrugs all round. Nothing obvious leapt out at us.
So we left the place as we found it and returned to our inn.
The next morning, it was back to the Hurst's mansion again. Back into our street worker disguises.
This time when the two guards left, me, Asi and Gavin followed them. Same inn as yesterday.
I knocked on their door after giving them time to get undressed for bed.
"Room Service!" I shouted.
The door was wearily pushed open: "Wha'?"
Gavin and Asi hit it with the full weight of their shoulders and I cast Colour Spray into the room. This rendered the two saps unconscious.
They were bound and we began the questioning. Guard One, Sandoval Jones, was quite helpful and did not need much persuasion at all before he told us everything we wanted to know.
The other guard, Grispit Cutass, was more cagey. He had to endure considerable discomfort before he would tell me anything. His surname turned out to be rather apt, and he will have a painful time for the next few weeks if he dares eat a curry.
Gavin was not very happy about Asi and my questioning techniques, but, not being a very bright fellow, I asked him to fetch us some pints of bitter for us and the two guards. And while he was away, we got most of our information.
In a nutshell:
This was all reported back to the group. Since we were still too scared to sneak in to the Hurst house, Flung decided to approach his employer with what we had.
Stewart Field was interested to hear that MA funds were being used to guard Hurst's house. He told Flung that tomorrow there was going to be a MA meeting in the board room. Flung convinced him that it would be a good idea for Field to arrange for members of our party to be present posed as guards and serving girls.