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Post by Fish the Tinkerer on Apr 15, 2023 16:27:30 GMT -5
This was much more the work Fish was used to getting as they read over the dossier. Fish may or may not have been getting a bit distracted by doing good for others even if unintentionally. Some people might say that was a good thing, but Fish was a little crime lord in the making. They weren't supposed to being doing nice things for people. Plus Fish had a few things they wanted to test out and this was a good chance to do that. Fish looked over the village from a higher vantage point in the cliffs before approaching. They perched in the tree staring ominously forward. From a distance they just looked like a large crow looking over the horizon, though it wasn't much more comforting to get up close and realize it is in fact a more humanoid bird with vacant eyes. This place seems complacent enough, a soft target. Fish had heard about the strides the region was making and strangely the more secure people felt, the easier it was to target them sometimes. Safety is nice, but if it allows for complacency, that's the exact weak point Fish can hit. Rich people are easy to rob because they don't worry about their coin. Strong countries are easy to hit because their people aren't on edge. Fish would fix that.
Quest Name: Contaminate the Supply Participants: Requires exactly two people (you and one other, if the other participant does not qualify, they will not gain the reward) Location: Anywhere (Can be repeated for a different region) Post Requirements: 5 post per person, 200 words per post Reward: -15 Security for selected Region (Extra -5 if not your home region) Description: Sickness is an easy way to demoralize a region, causing its people to become sick and unable to work as hard. The simplest way to bring a whole city to its knees is to pollute their food and water. You can do this with poison, or contaminated materials that would cause food to spoil and water to become toxic. You can sneak into a city and attack its supply there, or target outlying resources like wells or food stores. [/spolier]
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Post by Gwendolyn on Apr 19, 2023 4:10:53 GMT -5
(1) Gwen crouched low in the underbrush, observing the village. It wasn’t exactly a job she wanted her maidens to know she was on, since the target was ordinary people. No, peasants. Lesser thans, dehumanization made the job easier, in both sabotage aspects as well as her normal courtly duties. Unfortunately for the village, Dragon’s Cradle had been experiencing a bit of a come up lately, and Count Thadda was set do leech more power from the crown as a result. It was time to show Sol City that things weren’t all kittens and milk in this mountainous place. She gave a brief whistle, one of the code words that Fish had derived for the two of them to communicate. It was time to advance. She knew he was in the tree’s somewhere above, and it was unimportant to know exactly where since he already knew what to do as long as they could hear each other. Standing, she made her way out of the underbrush and onto the main pathway into town. She was dressed in her normal engraved plate armour, hoping to come off as just another adventurer traveling through town. (2) Nobody paid her much mind, and hopefully noone would make note of her presence afterwards. Eagle Sight Potion In plain sight
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Post by Fish the Tinkerer on Apr 21, 2023 20:00:48 GMT -5
Sometimes Fish forgets about the concerns others might have when it comes to this work as they look down to Gwen. It was honestly a bit of surprise that she was the one coming with Fish on this mission. She seemed a bit too proper and well-behaved for something like this. At least she left the maids behind, Fish didn't like extra variables.
When the signal is given, Fish drops silently from the tree and melds into Gwen's shadow.[1] They could follow behind the knight and stay relatively hidden thanks to the size difference. Silent steps trailed behind her as they got closer and closer towards the town. The mountain spring that fed this town's water supply was on the complete opposite side of the town, so it would be a pain to get all the way across town.
"Keep moving, Fish's scouting showed the spring is 2-point-5 meters outside of town and up the mountain. The longer we stay, the more chances someone asks you to help." Fish taps the morse code into a less armored spot on Gwen.
Thankfully, Gwen was at least a good face for this mission. She looked proper which drew less suspicion. Fish had plans for if they were outed, but they preferred to avoid those for the time being.
1. Pass Without Trace
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Post by Gwendolyn on Apr 26, 2023 4:46:04 GMT -5
The feathers tickled her a bit, and she had to stifle a laugh, but got the message regardless. It was slightly disconcerting knowing that someone was using your shadow to hide, but fish was a pretty trustworthy companion so far. It wasn’t like she carried a coin purse or something anyway. Before the pair, a small guardhouse sat on the main road into the city, with a bored looking man at the post. His polearm leaned up against the outhouse sized hut, and he read from a frayed copy of the Lore Gazette. Gwendolyn maintained her stride, only looking at the man to offer a brief smile and polite wave.(1) Thankfully, he seemed to care more about the new plants that had been cataloged than any sort of actual security work. It was a small town with a forgettable name. One church, one guardpost, one central market. Boring, but she understood why it made a good target. A town like this falling victim to poor sanitation showed that it could happen to any of the other identical towns dotting the countryside. Springtime was certainly having it’s affect on the populace. There were more people out and about than usual, enjoying the nice weather while it wasn't pouring. Children played in the street and peasants hustled their wares that had been sitting all winter. “Should be easy enough” She whispered to the shadow behind her. The mountain loomed over them like a ogre, watching their every move. In Plain Sight
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Post by Fish the Tinkerer on Apr 26, 2023 19:20:12 GMT -5
When they reached the edge of town, Fish would finally slip out from Gwen's shadow. They looked up at the cliff and rock face they had to climb. It wasn't a sheer climb, but it was steep enough that trying to just walk straight up would be exhausting. For Fish, this would be a relatively easy climb, but they were not sure how easy this would be for Gwendolyn in her armor.
"How prepared is Gwen to climb?" Fish has a few different options to go through if Gwen is unprepared, but they could run through those if needed.
Their beady little eyes constantly shift back to look at the town and make sure no one was watching them too closely. It seems like their partner's polite act had turned most people off from staring at them too intently. For a master thief like Fish it was odd watching people pull the hiding in plain sight. Their master did it all the time, he had a smile and charm that somehow made people just forget he was there or could never place him, he was familiar but not well known. Fish on the other hand stuck to the shadows and did not wish to be perceived at all.
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Post by Gwendolyn on Apr 26, 2023 22:15:28 GMT -5
“Hmmm….” She pondered while going over her options. She really didn’t have anything normally to climb, mountainous areas not really her forte. Idly, she paged through the ring that Wolfe had given her. Goo whip….Soft Body…Cat’s Grace? Cat’s Grace could work! She activated the sigil and felt the adrenaline surge through her extremity muscles. Rolling her shoulders, she got to work. “Meet ya up there!” She shouted as she leapt to the first boulder nearby and began to climb. It was like watching one of the monkeys at the zoo climb their little bars. Manifesting her weapons in midair along the pathway up, she leap to grab them, then swing herself to a higher foothold on the mountain. About ten minutes later, and a significant amount of sweat accumulated from doing a gymnasts routine in full metal armour, she arrived at the top. Looking back down, she tried to see how fish had made it up. Before her, was a medium sized glittering spring, sat next to a small windmill structure that had pipes leading from the pool. An old man sat nearby the windmill, smiling and waving at Gwen idly. Shit… She had hoped the place would be abandoned, now their options limited significantly. Knock him out…Kill him… or risk exposure.
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Post by Fish the Tinkerer on Apr 27, 2023 16:21:22 GMT -5
Well that was better than anything that Fish was going to offer. Fish starts to skitter up the wall as well with incredible ease.[1] They are not athletic or strong in the slightest, but they seem to have a keen awareness of their own momentum and movements that allow them to scale the cliff face easily enough. It takes them about half the time that it does Gwen, Fish had only waited incase she fell.
With their arrival at the top, the job was pretty easy. That is until the old man is spotted, that is a complication. He looked far too old to have climbed up here, does he live in the windmill? Fish had not seen anyone come in or out in the scouting, but it looks like the man doesn't get around too well so this could be rare.
"Fish can just shoot him if that is easier." Fish had already slipped into the shadow of their fellow alchemist and went back to the morse code talking.
They had no qualms about taking the old man out, but they'd learned that most people they work with aren't super cool with wanton murder. Fish figured it was better to ask to avoid any arguments. A loud disagreement would alert people to them and well then the whole mission is just ruined from that point on.
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Post by Gwendolyn on Apr 30, 2023 20:06:53 GMT -5
Gwendolyn stopped for a moment, considering the options. If they let him live, and they escape, he will likely be blamed for the poisoning. Potentially hung. Pariah for life. They could rough him up, give him an excuse that he put up a fight. Potentially loud, not fast. Leaves a witness as well, unideal. This village was likely doomed the moment nobody stopped them from getting up here, old man likely to die anyway. The odds just aren’t in his favour. Even knocking him out still left a witness, and this was meant to look as natural as possible to avoid suspicion. “Alright Fish, kill him” She said lowly, waving back at the old man. “Dump the body in the water, hopefully he’ll decompose enough that they wont notice the wound by the time investigators come.”
Unfortunately for the man, a conscience was a hinderance to the noblese. Deciding the lives of peasants was an almost everyday occurence, though mostly a bit more removed from the immediacy of it. As fish dealt with the man, she knelt by the pool and began rummaging through her potion pouches. Any random concoction would do, but she wanted this to mimic a natural occurrence. A cadavaberry potion would mimic a lethal outbreak, potentially killing both the young and the old who couldn’t withstand a short bout of near death. She poured the potions in and stood back up.
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Post by Fish the Tinkerer on May 1, 2023 16:02:48 GMT -5
Without leaving the shadows, Gwen could hear the dull thwimp of the firing of a bolt. The bolt itself is hard to track, but it takes an odd arc through the air going wide around Gwendolyn before sinking into the man's heart.[1,2] Fish hops back out from around, tucking their hand crossbow back into the shoulder holster.
They do not seem to have the same moral concern as the noble as they continue back along their path along the mountain cliff and to the river. It didn't look like there was an easy path up or down for anyone to check on the man. What was he even doing up here Fish wondered? Perhaps he fished the lake or tended to the waters...warned against anything bad getting into it.
Fish trots over to the old man, head tilting back and forth. After a moment they look up to the shack, moving towards it. Slowly and carefully, the door is pushed open as Fish hopes to find some sort of secret inside. Maybe he was some secret important person......unfortunately not. It seemed he was just a strange old man who prefered to live out of the city. Boring.
The aviankin grabs an ankle and struggles to drag him back into the shack. At the very least they could hide him so they didn't get sptted immediately, but their tiny arms could not move an average sized old man.
1. Blurring Enchantment 2. True Hunter
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Post by Gwendolyn on May 1, 2023 21:31:12 GMT -5
Oh. That makes sense actually, she thinks to herself as she looks up to Fish trying to drag the body. Standing from the water that was rapidly turning a sickly shade of grey, she walks over and grabs the other ankle. Looking at the corpse, she took but a moment to marvel at the precision of the small avian. Shot through the heart, the man was too late. He would give Love a bad name. Love being one of the guardsman at Mystwud Manor of course. But that didn’t matter. The door creaked open as they dragged the corpse into the shack, plopping him in a corner opposite the door. It would be an obvious murder unfortunately, as long as a day passed until investigators arrived they wouldn’t be able to revive him and get a confession. Alls well that ends well. “Let’s get out of here, unless you have something else to add to the stew.” She says, walking out and closing the door. Looking down the cliff at the village below, the children playing in the street. This time tomorrow the streets would be silent.
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Post by Fish the Tinkerer on May 4, 2023 19:00:13 GMT -5
Fish stops dragging and stares up at Gwen as she finishes the job with relative ease. It was a frail old man after all. They pluck the bolt from his heart and wipe it down with a cloth before putting it back in its case. No evidence left behind.
They hop out just behind Gwen, but no longer hiding in the noble's shadow. No real need for that anymore it seems. The bird does hop over to look at the water to look over it, head tilting to the side. A few of the smaller creatures had already begun to fall victim to the poison. Of course, Fish could add more poison, but at what point are you just wasting supplies? If it went too fast, people would know something was suspicious anyways. This amount should be just enough to take out a town, but not in some violent fit of sickness.
"Fish is satisfied. Miss Gwen made an efficient poison." They nod and point out some of the creatures that had already passed. Fish will turn to start heading to the side of the cliff face rather than going right back down from where they went out. Slip out the side if possible seemed like the best option.
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