Who's targeting Grayaere?

Estarai's foul mood the night before hadn't been lost on Ana.  Knowing Fine Branch and Dryali had had something to do with it, she and Tai followed them up to Damakaios' office the next morning to find out what's up.  Damakaios waved them in; then he, Dryali, and Fine Branch caught them up on events with House Grayaere and the missing imprinter parts, and thus were Tai and Ana unexpectedly drafted into a mission.

Tai:  is this sabotage, an attempt to gain information, or House Damazo doing post-sabotage to them?
Damakaios:  actually, that's why you're here.
Dryali:  oh, they told us the part is very expensive, but still cheaper than the son of the House going out to repair.
Tai:  why time sensitive?
Fine Branch:  we have the widget; we need to drop it and collect the money, so we can track it.
Ana:  so, gnomes don't do a lot of industrial espionage –
<Dryali made this face:  😮 >
Ana:  – is this effort proportional to what's expected here?  Or, is it unusual?
Damakaios:  it's not that common, but not necessarily out of proportion.  These seem unusual, but the Hadids had assassin vines.
Dryali:  I thought that Freelancers were neutral, don't get involved in these things.
Damakaios:  we don't cause these, but help solve them.
Tai:  are our badges from this House?  <He pulled his out and looked at it with renewed interest.>

Damakaios (who didn't actually know, since Freelancers' imprinter was located on Bizarre with Tanglar) demurred answering, and instead turned the conversation to what was to be done with the imprinter part.  He glanced at his notes from the day before, and noted the rogue, Valencia, was 5'7".

Fine Branch:  whoever has done it should have seen it.  Drop it, watch to see who gets it, should be simple to confirm.  <to Damakaios>  what are our rules of engagement, does House Grayaere want it back?
Damakaios:  well, it's 250gp/person; the House wants to know who and why.
Ana:  so, why is more important than getting it back.
Damakaios:  yes, they already consider the piece sunk cost; the device is already shipped with all its pieces.  Doria would prefer they do not know she knows.
Dryali <wryly>:  I should probably do the drop while the rest of you hide
Ana <primly>:  at least you are aware of your shortcomings
Dryali <hotly>:  are you calling me short?
Ana:  as if I should be making short jokes

So they needed to give a signal:  adjust a menu posted outside a restaurant in a nice shopping area.  Then, go to the drop after dark… the drop is above ground, in a park set aways back from the Rim, so upscale, but "just" upscale.

Dryali:  scout the park, with a winged creature.
Tai:  Spencer Thundersparks and I.
Dryali:  maybe Hawkie.
Tai:  that's a better idea.
Fine Branch:  I want to locate creature on Valencia before making drop.
Ana:  before drop, or signal?

They went downstairs, and Dryali prepared to do this drop.  He checked out a scimitar from the quartermaster.  The Dark elf hefted the unfamiliar weapon awkwardly, then buckled it on, in place of his rapier.  He put his shield and rapier into his handy haversack, and his eyes of the eagle into his belt pouch; there was no sense in making alter self do that much heavy lifting (it was already going to add 8" to his height).  Dryali carefully changed his enhanced defence infusion from his shield to his breastplate, then used his all-purpose tool to learn the message cantrip.

Thus prepared, he pulled out his artwork from two days' prior:  a picture of Valencia, enhanced by magical tinkering.  Tai and Ana studied it carefully, Fine Branch, having helped with the drawing, less so.  Then they split up:  Tai and Dryali to make the signal, Fine Branch and Ana to the drop point.

Once on the street, Dryali and Tai spotted a very nice coffee shoppe, Tours le Jus.  Tai got a latte and ensconced himself in the front patio, pulling out his jeweler tools as he sipped it.  Dryali kept walking; they would meet up in 20minutes, closer to an entrance to the Below towards Inky Agora.

Ana and Fine Branch decided to go to the park in question as the Idle Rich.  Ana dug through her bags and produced appropriate clothing for fancy lounging under the Daystar.  Fine Branch produced clothes which were nice, but not too nice; in other words, obviously the nekomata had nicer clothes.  Also, nekomata were born to curl up under the Daystar.

On their way to the park, Ana bought a fancy picnic basket, rather ornate, which offered as some of its contents two bottles of wine and a charcuterie board.  Ana also acquired a gnome-sized parasol.  Once at the park the two of them spread a blanket and fully enjoyed themselves.  They looked like they belonged there, possibly because they both believed they did anyhow.

Tai appeared to be intent on crafting a gold and silver bracelet, but was hyper aware of everyone passing on both sides of the street.  <Narrator voice:  David rolled a nat 20 on perception.>

Dryali, having walked past the restaurant so he would know the menu to alter, found a place that was out of sight.  The Dark elf cast alter self to become like Valencia.  He felt very, very weird; it had never before crossed his mind to use alter self as the opposite gender, let alone 8" taller.

He returned to the restaurant, paused in front of the menu, and then altered it as Valencia specified.  He wasn't particularly stealthy about it, between feeling all out of proportion as well as lacking confidence in what he was doing at all.  Not that he'd ever admit it to the others.  Anyhow, then he continued walking, toward the Grey Market.

Tai stayed where he was, watching.  Within 10 minutes, a server noticed the menu.  He nodded, un-fixed the menu, then went into the kitchen, empty-handed, ignoring patrons.  After a few minutes, he came back out of the kitchen, again empty handed.

Tai was almost done with the bracelet, so he took a few minutes to finish it, and also his latte.  He tipped the server at Tours le Jus, and headed out, looking for Dryali.  He found Dryali who now looked like a short Wild elf.

Dryali:  what's up?  You're early
Tai:  signal was picked up, they fixed the menu, went into kitchen, presumably to inform someone the signal was given.  Didn't see anyone else come out.
Dryali:  did you see anyone else fix the sign?
Tai:  no
Dryali:  what should we do now?
Tai:  they will be long gone, let's just cut.

Fine Branch and Ana had set themselves up ten yards away from the drop point, and Ana was having a great time.  Hawkie, circling overhead, was also having a great time, and didn't notice a lot out of the ordinary.

Fine Branch was having a lovely day basking in the warmth of the Daystar.  Around the 4 o'clock hour, he noticed another pair of people in the park who appeared to be doing the same thing.  They were perhaps a third of the way around from him and Ana, and even had the same picnic basket.

The reason Fine Branch noticed was because the foppish half-elf was with a human woman who looked a bit out of place, with scars across her knuckles and a busted nose.  She had the characteristic lack of neck of a person who Lifts.  As she munched on the rind of the cheese, she bitched at her compatriot about having gotten the wine basket, instead of beer.

Fine Branch elbowed Ana and pointed them out, but other than that, the Freelancers were not about to allow them to ruin their picnic.

The shadows grew longer and Dryali and Tai made their way to the park.  Right before entering, Dryali peeled off and looked for somewhere out of sight, and Tai wandered through to scope out what (and who) was where.

Fine Branch and Ana saw the big Silver dragonborn, and at that point they also noticed that a small package had appeared under the bench where Dryali was to drop the imprinter part.  Fine Branch's ears flattened a little, then he remembered that the foppish half-elf had gone meandering through the park, a bit earlier, picked a flower, and presented it to the muscle-bound human woman.  She'd rolled her eyes and said, "You're so bad at this."

Dryali cast alter self again, to become Valencia – it was still weird, but no longer unexpected – and also see invisibility, because he was not interested in surprise hostiles right now.  Then he moved into the park, his vision clear as the Daystar set, and swapped the imprinter part for the package.  He wandered off along the path, and nobody really saw him make the exchange, not even Hawkie.

Tai wandered through and caught a good place from which to watch the setting Daystar.  The foppish half-elf wandered over and retrieved the imprinter part.  Ana and Fine Branch started packing up, which disguised Fine Branch casting locate object so he could see the item move from the drop point to the half-elf's person.  The half-elf and human woman sat for about 10 minutes, until the Daystar was below the skylith edge, and then took off.

Tai left the park and met back up with Dryali, who looked like himself except carrying a scimitar and without his goggles.  The Dark elf was resentfully doing a ritual cast of detect magic on the heavy leather pouch he'd picked up.  The tempting clinking was insufficient to allay any paranoia that it had been set up as a tracker.

The detect magic detected nothing, and Dryali opened the pouch and checked, 100 plat!!  Remembering how Fine Branch was tracking the imprinter part, he carefully checked if any of the coins had been scored or marked, and whether the pouch was remarkable at all.  No to all of it.

Back in the park Ana and Fine Branch finished packing up.  Ana mused, "Not sure we should follow directly.:

Fine Branch started to reply, "I have pass without trace," but then considered the Maker gnome, and her giantass tome, and invoked blessing of the trickster on her.

They caught up to Dryali and Tai, and told them about the male half-elf, Kel, and the human woman, Brit.  They used the locate object to get line of sight on them, then Fine Branch cast pass without trace, which displaced the tracker.  <Narrator voice:  Shari and David also each rolled a nat 20 on stealth.>  Following the pair was also weird; Kel was very hard to track, but Brit was very easy.

The Freelancers followed the pair through Ripa Daneo; they were heading south and a little east as they went.  They passed not far from Freelancers Tavern, although notably jigjagged around it; and kept going, past the tunnel entrances, past the city outskirts, swinging a bit west of the grounds for the mount trading fair.  Finally they were in the area of the large mercenary outposts.  Since the mercenaries were fond of the tavern in Freelancers Tavern, there was a risk they'd be recognized.

Fine Branch:  traipsing past these mercenary camps is probably counterproductive.  We want to know where the object is, and should avoid property damage.
Tai <bent over to peer at Fine Branch>:  who are you?
Ana:  I look out of place, here
Tai:  don't you have a change of clothes?
Ana:  it's not like I can nip in an alley

The Freelancers fell back, and Fine Branch re-cast locate object;  Ana had Hawkie track Brit and Kel from above.  Hawkie lost track of Kel but kept an eye on Brit.  She fit in better around other mercenaries, so was more relaxed.  Ana changed her clothes, then cross-correlated what Hawkie saw with Fine Branch's spell; Brit and Kel remained together, and then passed into one of the mercenary compounds.

The Freelancers looked at each other, and walked over there.  It had high stone walls, with 5' wide crimson fans on the gates, and a flag with the same device.  They heard many mounts of a variety of types; Hawkie flying over told them pteranodon, wyvern, gryphon.  They also smelled bat guano.

The group looked at each other, recollecting what they knew about the Commerce-based mercenaries.  They knew the most about the Manticores, who were famous; and the Steel Dragons, in which Tomtom Evans had served.  Fine Branch and Tai knew of the Crimson Fan simply because they occasionally frequented the tavern.  Dryali knew they were irregulars, with varied skillsets.  Ana, however, remembered that her clan, Turen Itu, would hire them for dodgy bullshit.

Ana:  the Crimson Fan... will be happy to hire out for dodgy bullshit.  They also tend to run protection rackets.
Dryali <astounded>:  where did you hear that?
Ana:  I'm not sure  <waved hands vaguely> somewhere
<Narrator voice:  Grace's deception way higher than Shari's insight.>
Ana:  I just hear things

The Freelancers kept walking along the compound wall; the imprinter part was definitely within.

Ana:  we need to keep a watch on this place
Dryali:  we should talk to Damakaios
Tai:  I can go, I'm the fastest.  Fine Branch, do you need slots?
Fine Branch:  what?!
Tai:  I can bolster you … <did something, shoulders sagged.>  it's a 1st level slot.
<Oh.  Spell slots.>
Fine Branch:  haven't used those.

Tai went back to Freelancers Tavern with all due haste, and he and Damakaios withdrew to the latter's office as Tai described to the Pungarehu hanyou what had been found and what they were doing.

Tai:  any suggestions beyond watching through the night?
Damakaios <stroked beard>:  this is probably enough info, combined with what was learned from the thief before.
Tai:  I feel we are missing it – we've been following it but we have no sense of the why
Damakaios:  I think you should bring the others back; I don't want Freelancers to tangle with a mercenary group
Tai:  especially if it's secret
Damakaios <frustrated>:  it's incredible hard to tell what the fuck is going on with these Houses.  Alliances turn on a pegasus wing.  I suspect if they didn't do this on their own, to stir up bodyguard business then … Dryali and Fine Branch said House Damazo originally.  We should tell House Grayaere and let them sort this bullshit!
Tai:  oh, and Fine Branch advocated against property damage
Damakaios <recovered, amused>:  huh

Ana, Fine Branch, and Dryali tried to avoid drawing any attention to themselves, but only Dryali succeeded.  <Narrator voice:  Shari rolled a second nat 20 on stealth.>  (Perhaps Dryali should try not wearing his goggles more often when attempting anything stealthy.)  They wandered around the area, it being relatively new to them.  A lot of dive bars and brothels were set up between the compounds, and the smell of cheap beer was sometimes overpowering.

They were walking past the Manticores' compound when Tai caught back up with them.  "Damakaios wants us back," he said simply, and they returned to Freelancers Tavern.

Damakaios paid them 225gp each, but wanted descriptions of Brit and Kel.  Fine Branch, having watched them the longest, gave him the descriptions.  Then he, Ana, and Tai all gave their attention to Dryali.

Dryali pulled out the leather pouch and distributed 25 plat each to the others.  Damakaios nodded, impressed.

Then Dryali wondered out loud whether the rogue, Valencia, was fooled, or actually lying under suggestion.  He and Fine Branch reviewed the interrogation, and realized she'd only tracked them back once, and concluded from that event it was House Demazo, and did not actually confirm.  She had only seen them go to the back door of the house; she did not say she saw them go inside.