(TFT) re: SOLO II

["David Michael Grouchy II" <david_michael_grouchy_ii@hotmail.com>]

    Winning the fight against the Lieutenant and the arquibusier you got 
blood on your robe.  You clean the tip of the silver magical spear on the 
Lieutenant's shirt and take his keys.  Leaving the interrogation room you 
lock the door behind you.
    A short trip down the stairs to the sergeant's desk and you tell him 
that the Lieutenant was a vampire and you had to kill him.  The sergeant 
levels a stare at you.  You give him the keys, and tell him ``I locked them 
in the interrogation room.'' On that note you leave.

    Crossing the square you go to the Presbyteree.  It's about midnight.  
You're hungry, you need a change of clothes, something to eat, and you may 
need a little healing.  Some of the priests are
up.  They tend your wounds, bring you clothes, and cook you some hot food.
    One of the senior priests speaks.  ``Father Thias, we have come up with 
an idea.  On the morrow we are going to put crosses all over the city.  On 
the lamp poles, the walls, the docks, and in the sewers.'' He is an older 
man named Father Claude.  ``This may make the streets
safer.  Even at night.''
    Between bites of food you nod your agreement.  ``I need some brothers 
to come with me to the old brewery.  The one that burned down last year.  
Many of the street kids have been bitten and that is where they are sleeping 
during the day.'' You say, and take a drink.  ``I was thinking it would take 
a fight, but I think we will test your plan instead.  We'll mark crosses on 
all the door thresholds and the windows.  We'll need a couple of ladders.  
This should trap them in the
brewery.  Then we can send in the guard with their halberds and their freeze 
shackles to apprehend them.''  You go back to eating.
    Father Claude thinks for a moment.  ``Yes.'' He pours you a glass of 
wine.  ``I think it will be wise to test the plan first.''

    An hour latter you are leading a squad of eight monks.  They have 
quarter staffs and can use them well, being friars of a fighting order.  
Each has a leather sack like the kind used by farmers
sewing seeds.  In them are collections of crosses, rosary, holy water, and 
jars of blessed ashes.  They line up in two rows of four, each row carrying 
a ladder, and follow you into the night.

    Two children are entertaining on a street corner.  One is tap dancing 
and the other is playing a horn.  They have a little box set out with a 
couple of coppers in it.  The occasional passer by
tosses a coin in.  As your squad of monks approaches they shriek and flee 
into the crowds leaving the money.

    At the next street there is a child with a small table set up.  He is 
sitting on an empty crate.  ``Two too one!  Two too one.  I'll pay two too 
one.''  He has three cards on the table and is shuffling them around.  He 
see you and knocks the table over in his haste to escape.

    You are two blocks away from the old brewery now.  The main street for 
carousing is behind you.  This is considered an off street.  People come to 
here at night when they want a little more privacy.  To do business, sell 
stolen goods, or pay dues to the Thieves Guild.
    There is a child juggling knives.  Occasionally one seems to turn into 
an apple.  Then he starts making things disappear under a scarf.  He has 
attracted quite a crowd.  He produces flowers from air and presents them to 
a lady being escorted by a gentleman.  As she reaches for them they turn 
into a dove and fly away.  He asks for the gentleman's collar pin.  He can 
make it disappear.  He then pulls it from the lady's right ear and gives it 
to her.  The gentleman gives
him a copper and the couple goes off laughing.
    The child sees you but doesn't flee.  He continues running his game on 
the crowd.  You make the monks stop.  You want to watch this child a little 
longer.
    A minute later the gentlemen starts shouting down the street and comes 
hurrying back.  He's holding the pin in his hand.  "This isn't mine.  Give 
me my pin!" The child flees.
    Turning to the monks you say ``That's the first one I've seen this 
night.  Not a vampire I mean.  I hope he makes it till the morning.'' One of 
the monks replies ``He seemed very gifted for a youth of that age.  So many 
tricks.  If they were illusions I couldn't see him casting the spell.'' 
Thoughtfully you continue on.

    A block ahead you can see a gentleman staggering down the middle of the 
road.  He is either lost, or trying to find his way home.  A group of 
children are following him discreetly from a distance.  They are studiously 
ignoring the man yet keeping pace with him.  They haven't seen you yet.
    You start jogging at a faster pace to overtake them.  The monks keep 
pace.  When the youths turn and see you they scatter and disappear into the 
darkness.  These off streets are not as well lit.  Seeing that the drunk man 
is safe you stop and think for a second.  The old brewery is a block away.  
You can see it.  It looks dark and abandoned.  The windows are like black 
eyes with soot stains for eyebrows.
    You turn to the monks.  ``The lady.  What happened to the lady.  The 
one that was with the gentleman who lost his collar pin.  Did anyone see?''  
They look puzzled for a second and all confess they did not.  ``I think we 
have just seen a kidnaping.  That child may have been an important member of 
the Thieves Guild glamoured to look like a kid.'' Realization dawns on the 
monks.  ``He skillfully got the man to abandon the lady and come running 
after him.''

    [get 40 experience for figuring this out.]

    David Michael Grouchy II

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