Security for Ripa Daneo Mount Faire: 1st half

The Freelancers Julian and Wolf, Fiona and Yan, remained at the Ripa Daneo Freelancers Villa, the former two having been rescued towards the end of Tumultuous by Damakaios and the latter two.  On this night, Julian was playing in the Freelancers Public Tavern, and of course had drawn a crowd.

The crowd included Wolf, a human warrior who was very comfortable mingling with the mercenaries who tended to frequent the Public Tavern.  It also included the human sorcerer Nix, the nekomata cleric of The Cat Fine Branch, and the Dark elf artificer Dryali, all of whom had been drafted by Damakaios to provide security for the first few days of the Ripa Daneo Mount Faire, a couple days hence.  Fine Branch was helping tend the bar, which she did from time to time, and the others were sitting at the bar talking to Wolf.  When they got on discussing mounts, Wolf was telling them Julian had lost his pegasus in the rescue, but his own wyvern Rutilus was also rescued.

Wolf:  Julian teleported us to the circle in the College of Wizardry.  The wizards were not appreciatin' Rutilus showing up in their room of fragile, precious things
<Dryali laughed, with just a faint tinge of bitterness.>
Fine Branch:  if they weren't wanting people to knock stuff over, don't put it near the teleport circle
Wolf <knocked back drink>:  that's how I view it

Fine Branch poured Wolf another drink, and set it on the edge of the bar.

The day before the Faire opened, Dryali, Fine Branch, and Nix flew down to the open fields southeast of Ripa Daneo which are totally not on any map.  Fencing was set up around a bunch of interconnected areas, since many mounts favoured by mercenaries, adventurers, and rich people flaunting wealth are carnivores, and think of other mounts as food.

Tall poles with loose cargo netting was over some areas; these were for the flying mounts.  On the other side were areas for ground mounts.  Between them, off-center, was a large low building, from which Mudra Copperfeather, a male Holder dwarf, managed the whole affair.  The Freelancers headed towards this building, noticing there was another area opposite it, set up with some booths and also pens for very large creatures. 

Mudra:  I just need Freelancers for days; the Steel Dragons are patrolling nights.
Fine Branch:  any specific security threats you expecting?  Or just keep the peace?
Mudra:  in the past, we've had thieves, loose animals, sellers maltreating animals

The Freelancers nodded, and strolled out to get the lay of the land.  Dryali cast detect magic as they wandered around.  People were setting up, and they looked curiously at the various stuff required to set up a sales area for mounts.  They didn't notice anything particularly alarming.

Others were also walking thorough; Mudra wasn't relying on Freelancers alone, given the worth of the mounts.  The Manticores mercenary company were of course providing extra security in the manticore mount section.  In the giant bat mount area were a lot of half-orcs; they were from The Flying Foxes.  And of course, a lot of Steel Dragons, shiny plate painfully reflective in the light of the Daystar, were scoping the perimeter, so they would know what's abnormal.

Fine Branch watched all these carefully to see if they were behaving oddly, in case the mercenaries had nefarious plans.  But none of them were doing anything different than what the Freelancers were.

Satisfied  with their activities, the Freelancers returned to their villa for the night.

Mudra was disinclined to tell the Freelancers where to patrol.  Nix was interested in wyvern bling for Eris, especially silvered tack, so the Freelancers decided the wyvern section of the Faire was the first place to patrol.

A vendor had a pen set up with 4 wyvern hatchlings.  They were very cute, and a human passerby had stopped to try to pet them.  A Wind sagani handler was trying to stop the human, and 3 of the 4 wyverns were interacting with the discussion.  The 4th, however, had discovered a loose board in the holding pen.

Fine Branch strode over to talk to the handler, while Nix cast minor illusion of a bunny, and Dryali started using dancing lights to distract the hatchling.  The hatchling did not care about a bunny that did not move, but started pouncing on the lights, much like a kitten on a laser pointer in a different universe.

Fine Branch spoke to the human trying to pet the hatchlings brusquely, and to the handler she said, "Your attention is needed elsewhere," pointing to the dancing lights.  The handler looked and forgot about the person trying to lose their hand.  "O crap!  Stay away from that board," she exclaimed, and hurried to fix it, while Dryali kept up the distraction.  After all, there was a dancing light for each hatchling.

The rest of the morning patrol was without incident.  Sadly, Nix did not find any satisfactory tack for Eris.  it was either very workman-like, which she already had, or very garish, which she did not want.

That afternoon, the Freelancers decided to check outpatrol the manticore area, despite it already being patrolled by the Manticores.  They saw vendors of lion, tiger, panther, and snow leopard manticores, organized into their own sections.  At the center were vendors with baby manticores, they were very cute.  This time, it was Nix who wanted to pet them; she struggled to resist the temptation.

The Freelancers approached the panther section to find a small pen with only 3 manticores, which the sellers had wild-caught and trained.  A half-elf was bargaining with them while, unseen by the vendors, two others were sneaking behind to steal one.

Fine Branch dropped a döppelganger behind those two; the Wind sagani was offering food to the manticore.  She cleared her throat and asked, "Can I help you?"  Nix moved to join the döppelganger as the human thief was taking one of the bridles.  Dryali moved up behind, but not too close, to the half-elf, who was bargaining based on them being wild-caught.

The two in front of the döppelganger and Nix swore, but the Wind sagani with meat immediately applied blood on his arm and fell down, while the thief taking the bridle screamed "ATTACK!"  The half-elf decoy reacted with shock.  "I'm not buying your vicious manticore!" he exclaimed, then turned and walked away… right into Dryali.

Dryali reached up and put a hand on the decoy's chest, which was eye-level for the Dark elf.  "Not so fast," he warned, pleasantly.

Nix cast suggestion on the human with the bridle in his hand, "I can see you're trying to be helpful here.  I'll take the reins, and you go to Mudra and tell him the truth about what exactly you're trying to do here."

The thief answered, "Yeah. yeah, I'm gonna find Mudra and tell him the truth!  Yeah, yeah."  He dropped the bridle and headed towards the central building.  <Narrator voice:  the GM rolled a nat 1 on the save.>

Fine Branch cast create or destroy water, and washed the blood off the Wind sagani who had thrown himself to the ground.  Soaking wet, the thief exclaimed, "I– - - –almost got bit by a manticore."  He looked at his arm.  "Yeah, uh, good bye!" he said to the döppelganger.

Both the thief and the döppelganger disappeared as Fine Branch cast polymorph, turning the Wind sagani into a sloth.

Nix cast ray of frost on the half-elf in front of Dryali, but it shot harmlessly over his head as she critfailed.

The sloth backed up 5' as Dryali continued pleasantly, "I think you'd better come with us," as he prepared to cast web if the decoy ran away.  The decoy was not persuaded, and indeed disengaged himself from Dryali and ran away, only to get ensnared in the web, along with the sloth.

It all happened very fast, much faster than it took you to read this account.  The two sellers had been talking to this half-elf, and now he was in a web with someone who had been bit and was now… a sloth?  They looked back and forth at these, and the Freelancers, as Nix picked up the bridle and put it back.  "Did they – were you – wait.  Were they trying to steal from us?!"

All 3 Freelancers gave the trainers the same look.  "We came to the Mount Faire and–" the trainer sighed.  "Thanks for saving our profits," the other one said.

Fine Branch and Nix manacled the two miscreants and the Freelancers brought them to Mudra, who wasn't exactly surprised, since the human had arrived in advance.  Mudra was pleased they were stopped, but peeved at "...these people.  The whole point of the Faire is to be safe!"

Okay, Mudra wasn't peeved.  He was incandescently angry.  A cleric on loan to him cast zone of truth to get all the stories and statements, including from the Freelancers, and the rest of the afternoon was all about paperwork.  Mudra paid an extra 100 eagles each.

Irritated at this turn of events, Fine Branch asked, "How much paperwork is there for bodies?"  Mudra sighed, and told her resignedly, "SO much more, especially if you have to fish body parts from the gryphon poop."

The morning of the second day, the Freelancers' curiosity overcame their need to patrol vigorously and they went to the area in the center that was set up for large creatures.  On the side near the flying mount side were various large insects:  griffinfly, giant bees (for gnomes and halflings), and giant fly.

Opposite those were mammoths and elephants.  In front of those, more like in the center in a large pen, was a war rhino.

Near the area's entrance were vendors selling items:  partially-made saddles that could be finished to fit; and some magic items.  The Freelancers checked those out:

• Horseshoes – they looked like iron, but bent like rubber, and could be told to leave fake hoof or paw prints 
• Martingale – decorated with stars, it could shine light in a cone, particularly useful when flying a mount at night
• Hunter's saddle – had a built-in quiver which always had 3 magic arrows

The horseshoes were very intriguing.

Fine Branch:  how much are the horseshoes of deceit?
Vendor:  special deal, 145 eagles, just for you!  Tell everyone!  Good for jokes, or sneaking.
Fine Branch:  you don't get 'sneaking', if you want me to tell everyone!
Vendor:  well, uh, just say fabulous magic item, you don't have to tell everyone what it does
Fine Branch:  will think about it

They left the vendor and went to the war rhino.  The seller was a female nekomata in very nice plate, who… didn't actually want to sell it.

Fine Branch:  how much?
Nekomata:  if I have to sell him, 50,000 eagles <burst into sobs, leaning on the rhino's side>

The Freelancers' eyes widened in surprise, and they got curious.  The nekomata explained her backstory: she and her friends helped a red dragon, and now she had to pay for it by selling her war rhino.  But, she didn't have to set the price in advance, so she made it ridiculously high.

Dryali's eyes narrowed behind his goggles.  Suspecting a gaes, or some other mind-fuckery, he popped detect magic and got a surprise.  No gaes was in evidence, but the nekomata's plate was magic, her longsword was magic, her ring was magic… she was far better equipped than the Freelancers.

Of course Fine Branch consoled her.  "I wish you the worst of luck in finding a buyer," she intoned.

The Freelancers departed.  "Let's go to the gryphon market," Dryali suggested, "There's more likely to be people pulling shenanigans."

Despite being Commerce, not Duquesne, the gryphon market was dominated by House Liona of Cliffshadow, who had a wide selection of martial gryphons, bald eagle gryphons, osprey gryphons (which were very nice), many peregrine gryphons, and some owl gryphons.

Dryali started looking for owl gryphons, and found dwarves from Pembroke selling burlier owl gryphons, suitable for towing airships.  Nix and Fine Branch saw tents with warming setups, selling eggs they were actively tending.

As the Freelancers walked by one of these, they saw a group of mercenaries on patrol tackling someone trying to steal an egg, as well as their 2 accomplices.  Fine Branch scanned the crowd for more accomplices, but it was under control.  Nix, curious, got the prices on the eggs, but demurred buying any.

There was a larger pen run by a specialist group of Djogeon, with vicious mountain gryphons.  They were well trained, and used to flying together, and made an impressive sight.

On the way to the Mount Faire for day three, Fine Branch and Nix flanked Dryali, insisting on going to see dinosaurs.  Dryali, being from Nadezdha where they were common, just sighed.

The dinosaur market had pteranodons, pterosaurs, quetzacoatls available as flyers, and also ground mounts, including duck-billed dinosaurs, herbivores such as chocobo and triceratops, and carnivores such as a raptor big enough to ride.  Nix wondered how much these latter were, and got some prices.

As the Freelancers wandered around the dino vendors and pens, they saw some pteranodons that weren't looking all that great.  They noticed some of the smaller ones were not well cared-for; perhaps because of crowding, some in the back were getting picked on by the others.

They stopped to talk to the vendors, some Djogeon and Dark elves, and Nix cast suggestion on a Djogeon, "You are obviously not taking good enough care of these animals; you should feel bad and do better."  That worked in that the Djogeon felt bad, but their space was too small for them to do better.

Fine Branch said ominously, "I could polymorph animals into something bigger," but both Nix and Dryali told her, "That won't really work, the animals would fight more."  After further conversation, the Freelancers came to understood the vendors had just misestimated the market.

As they walked back to the central building, the Freelancers discussed it and concluded if the vendors had actually cared much about the market they would have done something about it earlier.  So they reported the situation to Mudra, including Fine Branch's notion of using polymorph.  Mudra shook his head.  "I'll start with goodberries," he told them, but will get some carpenters out there to help."

That afternoon, the Freelancers patrolled the ground mounts area.  It was much larger, but very chill.  Also the ground mounts were herbivores, so they were calmer and less noisome.

Most of the animals here were equine, and quite a few of the vendors were Commonweal, not Trading:  komodos and hobgoblins.  Horses, ponies, war horses for riding; donkeys mules, oxen for cart-pulling.

Nothing much was happening, so the Freelancers had a quiet afternoon.

The next morning the Freelancers continued with their theme of equine mounts and patrolled the pegasus market.  This area was much better organized than the others, with all the lines represented as well as breeders.  They noted a section run by House Ha'aheo.

There were areas with small foals, knees wobbly and wings tucked, still getting used to their bodies.  Dryali was fascinated by the sight, and stood on the lower rail of the fence, watching.  Fine Branch, meanwhile, was watching another fascinating sight:  a lovers' spat developing realtime in the walkway.  Just as it was about to get loud, she cast calm emotions on the couple, then followed up with some impromptu counseling to talk them down. 

Possibly Dryali had more entertainment.

Nix decided she did want the horseshoes of deceit, so the Freelancers went back to the central section that had the vendor and the weird mounts.  Nix went into the vendor and started haggling with him; after all, her wyvern Eris only needed two of the things; but did need them adapted.

In the end Nix was very persuasive, and got what she needed for 50 eagles.

While Nix was doing that, Fine Branch and Dryali were looking around the rest of the area.  The elephants were gone, the mammoths were still there, there were fewer insectoid mounts.

The nekomata in plate with the war rhino was still there.  Her asking price was higher; she'd also gotten the horseshoes of deceit.  She was entertaining herself by having the war rhino stomp back and forth leaving tracks like an ox, or a horse, or a bear. 

That evening, Dryali and Nix suggested to Fine Branch and Damakaios that maybe the rest of the Mount Faire should be best taken care of by other Freelancers.  Damakaios agreed and paid all three the mission fee minus the Freelancer cut, totalling 225 eagles.