In reply to DM Paul (msg # 133):

“This is working out to be a long day and I am ready to get to that tavern. It’s best that we get a move on!” Frug says with a bit of frustration and then continues, “We could wonder around here trying to figure out what may or may not be following us. But the tavern sounds nice. I think that navigation through this path we know about will help us work together better, which we will need for the work that we have ahead of us.”

With that Frug starts off in the direction of Castellan.

Froodle,

seeing no other ways forward begins to trudge after Frug

Drake agrees and follows on still wondering about the motives of their guide.

Someone might be following them, so best to find out. On their trek to Castellan, Sietnyas tries a couple times to spot any tails. Both times he tries to get out of sight after a distraction - once, by planting a pilfered whatever on a bystander, once by provoking an argument with a shopkeeper over the price of something. He tries to take to the roofs once, and once to the side streets. If neither works out, he shrugs and to just stay a little more alert than normal the rest of the way.

OOC: Added a Perception check to spot followers - only a 15
This message was last edited by the player at 23:37, Thu 07 Oct 2021.

District boundaries are not hard and fast things, yet one know when one has left easy comfort and shelter behind. There's no one else in sight. Here and there magical lights have gone out and not been replaced. The wholesome sounds of life come from behind and more faintly, rather than from all around. Nothing, really that would keep some dedicated and motivated people from pushing just that much further out. But better to be safe than sorry, most seem to feel.

They're not sure when it happens, and backtracking even several turns doesn't undo it, but the liminal, not-quite-unwelcoming space at the edge of Gate of Gold quickly gives way to a volume of stairs, bridges and towers that is firmly outside of any proper district. Magical lights are few and far between, and what light their is is often dim, flickering, or transitory, and its source is rarely apparent. Most Sharn natives are used to seeing a ceiling and floor of criss-crossing architecture, when outside of a tower, but in this space one is enclosed by darkness, if not also by walls.

Not silence, though. With fewer bodies and other non-stone surfaces and objects, the space echoes crazily, and sounds carry from sources that would likely be unseen even if there was adequate light: occasional pinging of metal on stone; dull droning, like chanting or a trick of air flow; various dripping sounds; creakings, perhaps of hinges or bridges carrying significant weight; now and then a crack or rumble of some part of a tower deciding, at long last, to settle.

This region was not always thus. It's composed of structures that were all built or erected for a purpose and a population, with room for thousands to live and work together. At one time folk lived here and might one day again. For now, though, it is a mess, with garbage, detritus and muck clogging the streets, the walls marred by gang grafitti and other defacements.

This, in other words, is the city-dweller version of the unforgiving wilderness.

The party has travelled for an hour. Having kept to Zizmith's instructions, they have every reason to think they will reach Castellan within the next hour. That's when they hear a commotion from a few levels down, and behind the party: tromping feet, gruff voices and snarling beasts. At about that moment, they also hear a voice nearby, soft and pleading.

"Please, they're after me. Can you please get me out of here? I can pay you... a little. Please."

The voice is coming from a small alcove, and from a small (for a humanoid) female figure, in ragged and dusty cloak.

Froodle hears the tromping feet and snarling beasts. His years of brawling have attuned his senses to danger and he begins to sense it now. He's not one to turn away from a fight though.

He's also not one for talking, in fact he often has the impact of frightening those he talks to so he'll leave the conversation with the bedraggled humanoid to others. He readies himself, ensuring his shield is strapped and his axe is in hand.

To protect his comrades, and keep distance between the chasers and prey until the party have established what is going on he will position himself facing the oncoming beasts.

Destiny often showed itself in coincidences. If they were meant to meet this... whatever she was, perhaps it was a good omen? Sietnyas crouched under cover.

"They have animals with them. It will be hard to hide, unless... can you make something smelly?" Sietnyas whispered to Frug. "That's how your magic works - evil smells - isn't it?"

Meanwhile he looked for any ways the pursuers might come up to their level (or they go down, for that matter).

In reply to Sietnyas (msg # 140):
Frug looks at Sietnyas sharply and says, “Even though that sounds like something a naturalist might spin into a ritual, I might be able to infuse a sent disguise contraption…” His words trail off as he begins to dig through his bag for some components and mechanisms.
As Frug continues to work on the contraption he starts again, “We’re going to need to get the smells of this area to travel or surrounding us. Can someone please get me some of the smelly rubbishy from around here.”
What looks to be some kind of magical incense burner that diffuses the smells of the place starts to put out a grayish mist…

"I can do that!" Sietnyas agrees, and scampers to find appropriately odiferous items. "Someone else should see to the girl!"

Frug's concoction makes a rude sound, and suddenly the smell of mildew, ash and offal that had permeated this location becomes just that much more intense. It's not all that different to the humanoid noses, but Frug seems certain that it will be as if none of those present had ever been here. But that won't matter much if they're still standing here when the animals and their handlers arrive.

Most places in Sharn offer lots of paths away from them. It wouldn't be hard to find a short route to Callestan, or an easy route, but such would also be the most obvious to any pursuers. A more difficult, more circuitous or more subtle and unpredictable route might be preferable.

In reply to DM Paul (msg # 143):

“So now that we weren’t here, how shall we get to where we’re going?”, Frug asks looking for someone to take the lead on getting us forward. “I am getting rather thirsty, is all that I’m saying about that!” He slowly starts walking into the direction they had been going.

"Let's hope that throws them off, or at least buys us some time," Sietnyas says. He goes over to the girl. "You'd better come with us, eh? We were going to a bar somewhere near Callestan, do you need to go anywhere nearby? What's the deal with you and that bunch anyway?" he asks quietly.

Meanwhile he tries to find a route that will take them away from their pursuers primarily, but not too far from the direction they hoped to travel. Some loops and changes of direction couldn't hurt. They'd just have to hope this group of - whoever they were - didn't know where they were going and try to get there ahead of them.

Drake walks over to the girl and Sietnyas and gives her his widest most reassuring smile. Which isn’t very successful from a Dragonborn with a row of sharp spikey teeth. He hefts his frost sword and shield readying them for any trouble.

‘Girl, why are you being chased and by who; Also do you know the fastest way to the Bell, Book and Candle?’

Sietnyas finds a route that looks like it will serve, and gives no obvious indication that it is a good path to Castellan.


Either she's already at her maximum level of consternation, or she's been around plenty dragonborn in her life, because she at least doesn't look more worried. She creeps out of her alcove, toward the warrior, and toward the direction Sietnyas is leading the party. She's a slight thing, judging by her bony wrists and ankles. These stick out of baggy. non-descript clothing and the aforementioned cloak, which is rather shapeless, too large for her, patched, ragged and dusty.

"Daask gangers," she says, looking around, "I-I think they think I took something from them. I didn't even know this was their territory! Usually there are markings. Please, can we go? I'm Mol." Mol situates herself in the middle of the group, and seems able to keep up.

---

Status:
On or about to be on circuitous route to prevent pursuit. Scent cloud masking party's presence and direction.
Mol has joined the party and is in the center of the group.

Frug falls behind Mol, but doesn’t make it to the furthest back of the group. As he maneuvers into position he pulls near Drake and says, “I would like to have some muscle in the back in case they come from behind. That way I can keep my range for attacks, if it comes to that.” Frug double checks that the scented cloud maker is doing well.

---

Status:
On or about to be on circuitous route to prevent pursuit. Scent cloud masking party's presence and direction.
Mol has joined the party and is in the center of the group. Frug is pulling up the near rear of the group.

"I'll keep a look ahead," Sietnyas offers. But before he goes, he tries to remember if he's heard of this Dassk group. "What does Daask think was stolen? What kind of gang are they?" he asks Mol.

---

Status:
On or about to be on circuitous route to prevent pursuit. Scent cloud masking party's presence and direction.
Mol has joined the party and is in the center of the group. Frug is pulling up the near rear of the group.

Froodle hears the conversations going on while keeping his eyes out towards where the sound of pursuers is coming from.

He falls into line at the rear of the party, providing cover should the pursuers catch up and follows Sietnyas's lead


Status:
On or about to be on circuitous route to prevent pursuit. Scent cloud masking party's presence and direction.
Mol has joined the party and is in the center of the group. Frug is pulling up the near rear of the group.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:39, Wed 20 Oct 2021.

The scented cloud maker expended its alchemical accelerants quickly, leaving behind a "dead zone" that gave the party time to move.


Mol shrugs inside her voluminous clothing. "Who knows? Some idol, or a pile of bones. I think the worship the Dark Six, so maybe someone cleaned up one of their disgusting shrines, and now the gang is mad about it, and want to blame someone. Are you sure we're going the right way?"


The sounds of pursuit die down for a bit. Snatches of argument echo through the tower canyons to the party. Then the chase is picked up again, and the sounds start to get nearer.

The gang will probably catch up to the party, unless they do something else unexpected at this point.

---

Status:
On a circuitous route to prevent pursuit.
Mol is in the center of the group.
Frug is pulling up the near rear of the group.
Froodle is rear guard.
Sietnyas is ahead of the party, scouting.

Sietnyas has been looking for confounding routes - places where there were obvious paths to follow as well as less obvious ones. Intersections with less-obvious exits (alleys, climbing over fences, and the like), occasionally finding things that might be used to obscure the route they took after they pass (debris, boxes, anything movable and hard to see through). But he wasn't sure it was enough. It sounded like they were getting closer. He drifted back to the rest.

"We need a new trick," he tells the others. "I want to look for a place where we can make them waste a lot of time. Make them think we went one way, and put some kind of obstacle there. Maybe even have one of us decoy them? But everyone really goes another way. Like - an alley we can block and trap, make them go slow, with a sneaky way to another level nearby."

OOC: 24 Perception check for finding tricky routes on the way so far.

It's not all that's needed, but it has given the group some breathing room. Time enough to gain their next advantage and keep moving.


There are definitely narrow and treacherous alleyways, easily barricadible chokepoints, and all kinds of obstacles that could be put up.

---

Status:
On a circuitous route to prevent pursuit.
Mol is in the center of the group.
Frug is pulling up the near rear of the group.
Froodle is rear guard.

“We might be able to get away from them, but it’s good know if they are hot on our trail. I’m going to set some simple sound traps behind us as we go through some of these narrower areas. If we go up and down, I can set something simple on the down.” Frug thinks back to how he kept himself safe when he would sleep in the alleys and various nooks of Sharn as an orphan. “I’m up for going last, so nobody trips them as we continue. Always good to have someone near in case they are closer than we think.

As Frug begins to look for items that will help with the simple sound traps, he begins to think about the Dark Six and some of the known hunting practices of the followers of that pantheon.

---

Status:
On a circuitous route to prevent pursuit.
Mol is in the center of the group.
Frug is pulling up the near rear of the group.
Froodle is rear guard.
</quote>

"Can you make specific sounds? Or just things to make noise, like an alarm?" Sietnyas asks. "If you can make something that sounds like people running, or whispering, or something like that, it'd do for a decoy. Safer than one of us. If you just mean alarms, then after a couple ones they trip, we put an obvious one that they might ignore - and a real trap, something damaging, if they do."" Meanwhile he returns to scouting for a good place to try to sidetrack their pursuers.

Froodle considers his options for helping Frug cause distractions.

Noting that there are easily barricadible areas and plenty of debris he wonders about setting a block behind them, or maybe one to make the pursuers think it has been set behind them, when in fact the party have gone a different way.

He dismisses this thought though, he doesn’t know how close the pursuers are and does not want to be caught without a shield on his arm or sword in his hand while moving junk.
Instead he decides to stay within reach of Frug while he looks for items for the traps while at the same time maintaining watch at the back of the party. Any sign of the pursuers getting close and he wants to be the first person they reach. He knows this will be tiring but is up for the challenge.

Status:
On a circuitous route to prevent pursuit.
Mol is in the center of the group.
Frug is pulling up the near rear of the group.
Froodle is rear guard while trying to also maintain a protective watch over Frug

In reply to Froodle (msg # 156):
“I like your thinking Froodle!” Frug contemplates for a few seconds, “It’s best that you are set for battle and I will tell you when to get behind me. If we get far enough ahead we should go with making a few routes for them to follow.”
Frug puts a few gears and some thread from the various pockets and goes back and forth for a half a minute. He whispers to Froodle, even though he’s 30 feet away, “Okay, I am ready to set it. Get behind me and I will set it.”
Without much more than a few twinkles of fairy light the magical alarm trap is set within seconds of Froodle getting behind Frug.
They return to the party, with Frug looking more like he has spent the day in the furnace or a dumpster, which is the usual look for the curious and creative gnome.

Frug rolled 25 SUCCESS using 1d20+11.  Arcana skill check to create mechanical magical sound traps.

The party moves on. Mol seems a little incredulous at the methods being employed to deal with the gang. "Well," she says after a time, "Here I thought you'd just turn and fight them. But you've got me almost all the way to Castellan. I-" A delightful sound, like a row of windchimes in a breeze echoes through the cavernous space. Sharp curses follow soon after.

The sequence with which the tiny traps went off gives a precise sense of how much time they have to work with. It's not enough time to reach the relative safety of civilization, but it might be enough time to buy more time.

Frug's bag of tricks is about empty until he has a chance to reorganize his pouches of doo-dads.

---

Status:
On a circuitous route to prevent pursuit.
Mol is in the center of the group.
Frug is pulling up the near rear of the group.
Froodle is rear guard while trying to also maintain a protective watch over Frug.
Frug will take a -4 penalty to trying to create an alchemical or magical effect