General Summary
So, a new mission with an unbelievable amount of gold at stake: Infiltrate A Great House.
Over the Threshold
At the Elgata Estate next morning, Arnstein Drage, the new Domo, meets with Ugnan and Cherry, looks Cherry up and down (particularly at her red hair) and then questions their credentials. They pass muster and are ushered into the household.
Mapping the Layout of House Elgata
Cherry relishes her task and uses her housemaid disguise to map hallways, gardens, balconies, kitchen and privies during her initial chores. Privies, by Cas’ arse. And Sel-kai’s meant to be a civilised city – Privies have to be the least civilised inventions of all time – the stink, and that cold air blowing around your fruits. Simply horrible.
Ugnan and Cherry discover that Yellin is scheduled to return tomorrow.
Cherry makes some more progress the next morning and makes a bee-line to a large pair of double-doors behind the garden. The door lock was a tricky one and, after a couple of minutes, Cherry overhears a couple of guards and gives up for a later time; she believes the lock is crack-able, but will take a bit longer.
Back at the Kitchen, Cherry is offered help refilling the lamps from a lad called Finn. Ugnan has the run of the first floor and manages to map out the layout fairly effectively – family chambers on the East; Yellin’s in the NE corner.
Cherry deceives Finn to take on her task of filling lamps, doubles-back and, after a bit of a struggle, manages to unlock the double-doors. Behind the doors, she finds a study, but nothing really pointing to the manifests.
At the end of the second day Cherry successfully unpicks the lock to a gaming room (SW ground floor). Discovers a set of cards with emblems representing the Great Houses. Before leaving the room Cherry makes a fantastic job of weakening a window lock in the gaming room to enable us to break in at night, and disguises the work immaculately.
Search for the Manifests
Plans are laid for the infiltration. Sylke is earmarked as the getaway transport in a skiff and to assist with magic from distance if needed; Sharna and Cran plan to act as martial backup on the roof after I bend the bars sufficiently covering the game room window to allow them to creep in; Cherry and Ugnan are slated to sneak into the office and copy the manifests.
The skiff silently pulls up outside the rear of the estate and I set to work with a crowbar on the window bars blocking the game room window. Bastard bars must be steel – they don’t bend easy. Sharna begins scaling the building to the roof 30 feet above us but is interrupted on her climb by someone opening a window. I finally manage to bend the bar, although a sudden slip causes a sharp ‘crack’ as a weld gives way. Fortunately no one appears to have heard. Close to the balcony half way up, Sharna makes a huge leap, assisted by Sylke’s leaping spell and launches herself up over the balcony towards a Gargoyle on the roof line. Missed and a fall! With great strength and a wrench to her shoulder she manages to hang onto the balcony as she flails in the air. A second attempt is successful though. Just. Sharna leaps and just manages to hang on to the ear of the Gargoyle with one hand and clamber up.
I can’t climb in this damned new breastplate though and have to wait for Sharna’s rope to make my way up. By Cas that girl’s strong – she hauled me up hand over hand with little input from me.
I make a lucky spot of numerous trapped tiles all over the roof – the traps are designed to make a noise if anyone walks over them. With care I successfully help Sharna navigate the traps to the roof peak overlooking both the courtyard and the canal. We duck down against a chimney so no silhouette will show against the night sky.
More quietly, Cherry and Ugnan manage to sneak into the game room. Cherry leads Ugnan to the door leading to the rest of the complex, which she easily unlocks again. Peeking out of the door, Cherry waits for a guard to finish a pipe and they successfully sneak to the unexplored NW office, where Cherry makes short work of the lock. And just like that, she and Ugnan are in!
They spot a small safe in an office, where Cherry settles down in an attempt to pick the lock. With a series of failures, Cherry decides to light a lantern to help, while Ugnan rolls up a rug to block any light escaping under the door.
Meanwhile, in the skiff, Sylke believes all is quiet on the canal.
Back in the office, Ugnan finds the manifests in a desk drawer and copies them out as planned, while Cherry makes a complete dogs breakfast of attempting to pick the safe. Two broken lock-picks later, as Ugnan completes his scribbling, they decide to ignore the safe and make their escape. Once the smoker wheezes his way past their hiding place, Cherry leads Ugnan and her back towards the game room and escape.
Outside on the roof, Sharna and I observe Arnstein direct servants to bring a large covered object outside in the courtyard. It is uncovered to reveal a great mirror and we overhear the Domo ordering a servant to be ready, because, “the Master will be coming through soon.”
At that very moment, a shout goes up from the privies, “Ugh, the crapper is overflowing again!” This causes some commotion in the house and, thinking quickly, Cherry drags Ugnan to hide in a storage room. A guard moves past them to investigate the privies, which allows them to escape to the games room, where Cherry manages to lock the door and lead the extraction to the skiff.
Back on the roof, Sharna and I, our attention focused on the mirror, see that it flashes yellow, then blue signaling the arrival of an Elf. The elf must be Yellin. He strides through the almost liquid mirror surface and heads straight up the stairs to his bedroom.
Ugnan and Cherry clamber down to the waiting Sylke, with pulses racing and massive grins on their faces.“We’ve done it – broken in, copied the manifests, and escaped, locking the doors behind us,” Cherry exclaims breathlessly to Sylke as she alights in the skiff. Sylke, cold and damp after a long period sitting miserably in the drizzle responds with a grunt.
After thirty minutes waiting for the Domo to clear the courtyard, Sharna and I sneak back to the edge of the roof, where I slide down using Sharna’s rope. My attempt to re-bend the bars is simply too tough to do a thorough job, although the bar will look passable at a glance. Sharna drops effortlessly to ground level and we get in the skiff and wend our way back to the Old Sword.
Success! Although we left signs of forced entry into the games room for someone who looks very carefully.
Back at The Old Sword we sit down for a well-earned meal. Buoyed by the successful mission, we go to bed happy.
Handover
In the morning, after I complete some fast blade-practice, Ugnan heads back to the Elgata Estate for a final day at ‘work’ where he resigns from his post. The rest of us walk to the rendezvous location, where we make the hand-over with Deltar of Urgon. Remembering Ugnan’s skill with negotiating, I even manage to negotiate a little extra for a job well done. A total of 400 gold and a promise to use us again.
We spend the rest of the day consolidating our skills learned over the past couple of ten-day.
In the Old Sword Inn the next day we are met by none other than Aldaran Elgata and his younger brother Yellin. Aldaran describes a conspiracy that Sylke was in on: For the love of Eissa we were being tested!
I almost lose my shit with Sylke and leave a knife quivering in the table. Yellin acts threateningly so I join with Sylke in warning Yellin that he should never touch one of the girls.
After an uncomfortable stand off with Yellin, Aldaran eventually calms things down and ends up requesting that we investigate Deltar’s safe house – the old asylum – and investigate his potential role in Aldaran’s twin’s death.
Aldaran says, “Meet Arnstein at The Pig ‘n’ Poke tomorrow and he will give you further instruction.”
Comments