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Visitor :  Dice Roller| Game Info| The Cast |
| Ricka Bellsmith. Posted by Zag. | Group: 0 |
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| Author | Message | [bottom] |
Ricka enters the temple to Athena, an almost nondescript building some 100 yards downhill from the huge temple to Zeus, and she wonders for a bit what the Parthenon, the temple to Athena in Athens, looks like. A lot bigger than this, I'm guessing. She slips through the door in the back into the priests quarters, nodding to a semi-dozing priest as if she expected him and he should expect her. She didn't really believe it when Whyneks told her about the technique, but here it is, working like a charm. She moves into the toilet facilities, one of the few places in upper Altis that smells as bad as all of The Dregs smells, and latches the door. Standing up on the back of the commode, she can just barely reach the top of the rafter where the drop is. She pulls down the note and frowns at the bite marks on it -- a mouse, or maybe even a rat. Under the deacon's tutelage she is getting much better at reading, but it still takes her a few minutes to work out what it says. This message was last edited by the GM at 03:13, Wed 16 Mar 2022. | |||
Ricka frowns at the substance of the note for rather a longer moment after she'd finished frowning over its decipherment. She didn't know of any snitches other than herself either. Her thoughts began to turn to whether she could manage to set up one of her less-favorite "colleagues" to take the fall. Hopping down to the floor, she sets the note face-down on a tile that was dark with she dared not contemplate what, ground it into the stone with her shoe a few times to scrape and smudge whatever of the writing could be scraped and smudged, and then down into the commode it went. If anybody wanted to chase it down there, more power to them. She's got a long day ahead of her though, Vinefinger had been in one of his moods all week, and there was whispered rumor among the other kids that any of his crew who failed to report back that evening with a satisfactory amount of spoils was going to be spending the night on the street. Not that the den that he packed his minions into was particularly opulent, of course, but it was by any measure better than a night out in the rain. Back out of the temple she goes, not needing to nod to the now fully-dozing priest. She doesn't really care whose temple she's in, on her way out she whispers a brief plea to the only god she'd ever heard of who was relevant to her life: light feet light fingers, she sends to Hermes, friend of thieves. As she makes her way towards the market square she'd been staking out yesterday she tucks her hair up into her cap: being unusual in appearance in any way at all was a Very Bad Idea in her line of work, and leaving her hair down would basically amount to wearing a bright red flag on her head. Not good. For the thousandth time she indulged in a moment's wistful contemplation of the lifestyles of the rich and powerful, the sort of people who'd be welcomed into the sort of salons where, Ricka had heard in wide-eyed rapturous awe, women could dye their hair. Luxury. She laces her fingers together, flexes them backwards a bit, crackcrackcrack say her knuckles. Time to go to work. | |||
However, as she approaches the last block before the market, she feels a tingle, a little warning bell in her head that she's learned never to ignore. Someone is getting ready to strike her. She could continue a few more steps and confront whoever it is, back away slowly, or turn and run. | |||
Ricka slows her pace for a moment, assessing her options. If there's one hard lesson the streets simply adored repeatedly teaching to scrawny undersized undernourished ten-year-old girls, it is: don't get in fights EVER. Still though, she does want to know who it is that's got it in for her this particular morning. One of the other kids in Vinefinger's crew, most likely, but who in particular? There were only a couple of places in her next few steps someone could be concealing themselves: behind a tall rickety stack of empty wooden crates on one side of the alley, or behind the rubbish bins just opposite. Which... hmm. Not a lot of time to decide, so she just seizes onto her vague semblance of a plan and flings it into action: another couple of steps, then she bolts towards the stack of crates and hurls her (minuscule) weight against it at what she hopes is just the exact proper angle to send it crashing downward and across the alley, pummeling the space behind it and the bins with planks and nails. Then she backs off, ready to run back the way she came, once her plan either succeeds or fails. | |||
19:40, Today: Zag, on behalf of Ricka Bellsmith, rolled 23 using 1d20+7. Acrobatics. Yikes! Ricka accelerates suddenly, reaching full speed in barely a second. She makes a leap and drives a two-foot kick into the pile of crates at just the right point to bring the whole tower crashing down, then she continues her momentum into a flip and lands on her feet. She hears, "Whoa! I ... FUCK!" from the hollow behind the crates, and recognizes the voice as Blavhert the Brat, one of the oldest boys in Vinefinger's gang and his unofficial second in command. Ricka freezes for an instant, taking stock of the situation. She has no illusions that she could beat Blavhert in a fair fight, but maybe now that she has the drop on him, she might ... Then she hears, from higher up, probably on the roof, Vinefinger's voice, "Damn you boy! You can't spring a trap on a little girl!?! Ricka, just stay where you are, we need to talk this out." This message was last edited by the GM at 01:53, Mon 28 Feb 2022. | |||
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The big lad is clearly surprised that Ricka is not following Vinefinger's instructions, but seeing her charge towards him, he gets on his toes in a ready position and holds his arms out a bit from his sides, ready to grab her. This message was last edited by the GM at 20:18, Tue 01 Mar 2022. | |||
16:17, Today: Ricka Bellsmith rolled 30 using 1d20+15. CMD roll vs Iarain's grapple. 16:18, Today: Ricka Bellsmith rolled 14 using 1d20+7. Acrobatics to dodge Iarain's AoO. Darting and dodging, Ricka does her nimble best to flicker her way past Iarain, making for the relative safety of the crowd. Assuming she makes it, her knife promptly goes back into the little sheath in the sleeve of her jacket, and she melts into the currents of people, hopefully never to be seen by Vinefinger and his goons again. | |||
21:44, Today: Zag, for the NPC Iarain, rolled 6,5 using d20+3,d3+2. AoO fist (non-lethal) Looks up Grapple rules: Oh, My mistake. You don't roll CMD, you just calculate it -- that's why it starts at 10. So your CMD is 11 normally, 15 because you feinted successfully. However, because he doesn't have improved grapple, you get an AoO on him when he tries to grapple you. (If you damage him, it hurts him and is also a penalty to the grapple.) 21:50, Today: Zag, on behalf of Ricka Bellsmith, rolled 6,1 using d20+3,d4-2. Dagger AoO vs. grappler. LOL. Neither of you can hit a thing. 21:51, Today: Zag, for the NPC Iarain, rolled 13 using 1d20+3. grapple. Good thing you feinted successfully. :-) I was considering increasing the bonus for your natural 20 there, but didn't need to. Ricka runs at the huge simpleton. He sees she has her dagger out, so when she enters his space he half-heartedly swings at her weapon arm, but it doesn't connect. Remembering his job, he reaches with both arms to gather her in a bear hug, but suddenly she darts the other way. He turns, trying to catch up with her, and grabs nothing but air. In seconds, she has disappeared into the crowd. "Ricka! Come back!" he calls out plaintively. Do you want to do anything special on your approach to Markos the Fat's Chandlery? | |||
Ricka does not come back, despite Iarain's plea. When she's safely just another human-shaped form in a muddled sea of human-shaped forms in nondescript drab, she takes the quickest route she knows of the chandlery. Once she's close by though, she'll get a little bit more circumspect, traveling the last block or two via back alleys and rooftops, not wanting implicate Master Whyneks's contact by being seen approaching or entering his shop. She checks her path behind her more than once against being followed, and if she's reasonably confident no one is on her tail, she'll enter the shop via the back alley door. Here's a couple of these if necessary! 06:20, Today: Ricka Bellsmith rolled 23 using 1d20+5. Perception. 06:20, Today: Ricka Bellsmith rolled 19 using 1d20+5. Perception. | |||
She hops across to an adjacent roof, looks carefully in the alley, drops to the ground, and slips quietly to Markos' establishment. The back door has only a latch, which she opens by sliding her knife between the door and frame. Inside, the smell of wax is pervasive, with only a lesser odor of herbs and perfumes. She is in the back room, where there are rows and rows of candles hanging from bars attached to the walls. In one corner is a large cauldron with a fire box beneath it. Along the side wall are stacked crates, most painted with a yellow stylized bee on the side. Opposite that is a door to the shop itself. It has no latch. This message was last edited by the GM at 00:43, Thu 03 Mar 2022. | |||
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"I'm Ricka. A friend said I should come to you if I didn't trust the night sky." | |||
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Markos the Fat then bends his massive bulk down on one knee in front of the large cauldron. Grabbing two large rags to protect his hands, he grips the firebox below it and pulls, the entire cauldron moving with it. He has only moved it a few inches when the bright chime of a bell comes from the front room of the shop. As Markos laboriously works his way back to standing, Ricka can hear the arrogant voice of Blavhert the Brat, "Yo, fat man. Ya got a customer out here." The chandler waves Ricka to where she can't possibly be seen through the door, then opens it and walks out. Only slightly muffled by the door, Blavhert's voice is clear. "Have yeh seen a terrified little squirt of a girl, about so tall, with dirty orange hair? Vinefinger wants to have a few words with her, that's all." There's a short pause, then Markos rasping out, "No. No. Nobody like that. What's she done?" "That's none o' your business, fat man. Maybe I oughta have a look around, like maybe she snuck in and is hidin'." This message was last edited by the GM at 18:32, Sat 05 Mar 2022. | |||
But he wasn't wrong about the other part. She had snuck in, and she is hiding. Having scoped out the room for half an hour, Ricka would be already familiar with the choicest spot for a very small person to secret herself away, and she makes for it now. Or rather, whatever was waiting to be revealed underneath the cauldron might be the best of the best hiding places, but she had little confidence that she'd be able to move the huge tub of metal herself at all; the idea of being able to do it quickly and quietly seemed flatly preposterous. So the second best spot would have to do; she climbed into the crate way back in the corner behind all the other identical crates, pulling the lid closed behind her as best she can. 17:04, Today: Ricka Bellsmith rolled 29 using 1d20+9. Stealth. This message was last edited by the GM at 17:46, Sun 06 Mar 2022. | |||
Ricka pulls at the top of a crate in the corner. After one sharp tug it opens, and she sees that it is filled with rolls of beeswax. Grabbing two at a time, she stacks them in a neat pyramid on the next crate over, until there is barely room for her to squeeze in and close the lid. Meanwhile, she can hear Markos stalling. "Oh no," his voice booms out. "I let you back there and either you rob me back there or I go with you and your friend robs me out here." "I'm not going to steal a bunch of smelly candles, you old blob. Get ... out ... of ..." and the rest is lost in sounds of struggle. The door opens just as Ricka lets the lid down above her. She is quite pleased with how it closes without even a sound. After half a minute, Markos speaks again. "See? No one in here. Now get out of my shop." A few minutes later, Markos pulls the lid of the crate and helps Ricka climb out, not that she needs it. "Nice," he says, "good hiding spot. I found you so quickly only because I knew there was no stack of wax rolls here, but it looks quite natural." He leads her over to the cauldron. "You probably could have gotten in here, but it would have been a tight squeeze." he says, as he shows her how the wall behind the cauldron swings back, revealing a small hiding space dug below the building. By lying on her back behind the cauldron and pulling her knees to her chest, Ricka could have rolled into the space and almost been able to stand up inside it. Markos takes on a lecturing tone. "When you're looking for secret doors, don't look for a door, look for scrapes on the floor that don't belong, something that can become a handle, or a gap between wall and floor." He tugs the wall back into place, grabbing a bit of the baseboard that has just enough of a ridge to get fingertips behind. "See this? No scrapes, because the door only swings back. And the baseboard hides the gap between the wall and the floor. But you can see that the baseboard has a bit of an odd shape, so I can grab it." He seems very proud of his construction, and it's clear he wanted to show it off to someone. (You may assign one of your next level's skill points to Perception right now, giving you an extra bonus now which is then normalized when you next level up.) He straightens up. "We have to wait until dark to get you out of here. You can't stay in the hidey-hole all day, but I can stall anybody long enough for you to get in there, or you can go back to the crate, if you prefer. Otherwise, make yourself comfortable." He grabs the wax rolls that Ricka had stacked up and tosses them one by one into the cauldron. | |||
Until dusk, she'll spend some time scouting the room down to its last finest detail, and some time studying the secret hidey-hole and its operation and construction, and probably a lot more time being bored out of her skull. | |||
Once night falls, Markos opens the back door, looks both ways, plus up above, and ushers Ricka outside, telling her to wait. She can hear him latch the door and drop the bar, and a dozen heartbeats later he appears at the side of the alley. After a few twists and turns, they arrive at the side door to the residence for the huge temple to Zeus. Levician Whyneks is waiting just inside the door, wringing his hands, and he looks visibly relieved to see Ricka safely arrived. "The underworld has been buzzing," Whyneks explains. "They say that someone in Vinefinger's crew stole all the coin from his safe, and that's why he wants to see her dead. We need to get you off the streets, and probably cut and dye your hair; it's too recognizable. You'll be safe enough in here tonight, but tomorrow we'll have to get you changed and then find a room for you." | |||
Otherwise she's perfectly content to just follow along with whatever Markos and Master Whyneks think is the best plan: this level of heat is completely new to her. The worst she'd endured to this point are the occasional foot chases to elude one of the more energetic members of the city watch; being blood hunted by people on her own side of the law, who actually knew what they were doing, was another matter completely, and she is not too proud to acknowledge that she's in way over her head. | |||
He pauses in thought, and finally continues, "We need to get you a place to stay, here in the temple. Starting today, you'll work for me, but we will have to maintain a cover somewhere in the temple where you will have enough freedom. Zeus won't work for you. The Father is the most powerful of the gods, but the women in his service do not have much freedom, and, frankly, there are, umm, issues. Demeter would work, you'd be going out with priestesses to bless fields and the like, so disappearing for days at a time would be reasonable. You could work in Poseidon's temple here, since you'd often be off traveling. Can you swim? Athena? No, they are too, you know, religious. And Hera is a big no. You don't want to work for Erastoo. Besides pressuring you to get a tattoo, which would hurt your disguise ability, she's a little, well, ... just no. Oh! Maybe Hermes. They don't have a lot of girls working there, but some. And you'd be running around all over the country carrying messages. Maybe that's just the thing for a little trouble-maker like you." He finally takes a breath, but before Ricka even has a chance to ponder such an important decision, he says, "Come on, let's get you transformed." Deacon Whyneks takes a small pair of shears from a cabinet. After seating the girl in center of the room and snipping away for a while, he announces success. "There you are. If you part it on the side, you could easily pass for a boy, but if you just go with bangs, it's a cute girl's cut." Rummaging through the same cabinet, he pulls out a bottle of dye and starts massaging it into her hair. He seems completely cavalier about it staining his hands, his floor, or his chair, though he does warn her to be still when a head shake splashes a little of it on to his jacket. He uses a towel to dry her head and a brush to even out the dye. Finally, he brings her a silver mirror for her to appreciate his effort. It's ... OK. She certainly does look different. Her light eyebrows stand out jarringly, and he wipes an inky part of the towel over them to stain them, as well. Drips of dye on her face are smeared but not quite cleaned by a cleanish corner of the towel, and he instructs Ricka to wash her face at the bowl on his nightstand. This message was last edited by the GM at 02:56, Tue 08 Mar 2022. | |||
She just marvels at her image in the mirror for way too long: she has probably the most horrible hack of a cut-and-color ever given to a human female, and she -loves- it. People who look like this naturally must have it -so- easy, she's certain. Melting into crowds like mist in the morning, nobody giving them a second glance. Heaven. This message was last edited by the player at 10:40, Tue 08 Mar 2022. |
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