Security for Ripa Daneo Mount Faire: 1st half

The thalassa Rocha was looming larger and larger in the Commerce sky, which meant it was almost time for the Ripa Daneo Mount Faire.  Apparently Mudra Copperfeather (the Holder dwarf who ran the operation) was quite pleased with the Freelancers' talents at the last one, because the day before the conjunction Damakaios was asking around in the Freelancers Tavern for volunteers to patrol the Faire again.

Naranjos was going around too, and told those who asked, "Sometimes Mudra gives a bonus for above and beyond."

A bunch of Freelancers asked questions, some about the gig and some about visiting to get mounts.  They were told that Mudra used the Steel Dragons to patrol the Faire at night (and warned the Steel Dragons had no sense of humour), and other mercenary companies also watched some sections.  In particular, House Lykaion had the Manticores patrolling the manticore area of the Faire, and the Flying Foxes patrolled the giant bat section.

That last caught the attention of some people.

Kaikoa:  I haven't seen a giant bat before
Ana:  bats sound lovely

So, it seemed Ana, Kaikoa, Dryali, FIne Branch, and Tai would patrol the first half of the Faire.  Damakaios warned them that while they could (and should) fly their mounts there, to stable them in the right area, and don't take them into the mount selling sections.

The next day saw 5 Freelancers heading to patrol the Ripa Daneo Mount Faire.  Notably they were just dressed as well-off mercenaries, no adventuring gear beyond a standard backpack.  Ana was wearing her oldest clothes, and Fine Branch had taken no steps to alter their appearance, and so looked like an orange & white Maneki nekomata of indeterminate gender.

Since Ana was excited about it and apparently so was Kaikoa, as soon as they had their own mounts stabled, and had checked in with Mudra, they headed to the giant bats section.  Looking around, they saw the giant bats had all sorts of colourations, and the areas with them had tents with long horizontal rails, 9' up. so they could hang upside-down.  Orcs and half-orcs of the Flying Foxes were patrolling with good discipline, and a large camp about ⅕ of the area belonged to them.

As they looked around, Ana swore she recognized one of the Flying Foxes, a half-orc, from the public Freelancers Tavern the other night.  She wandered towards him.  He eyed her then wandered off himself.

<Narrator voice:  we interrupt this narrative with Bat Facts From Joyce.

• baby bats are "kits"
• actual flying foxes are vegetarian
• they don't swallow food, but chew it up, suck out the juice, and spit out the detritus
• Malaysian flying foxes have a 6' wing span
• a bat carrying an orc would have to have at least a 12-14' wing span

we told Joyce she needs to play Skyway with us.  Of course she has a druid she rolled long ago.>

There wasn't much for the Freelancers to do here, the Flying Foxes had the entire thing under control.  <Narrator voice:  there really wasn't; Shari rolled a nat 20 on perception for Dryali.>  So they sought out the tents with kits, and although Ana and Kaikoa had a harder time dodging bat spit than the others, they at least got to handle and pet the bat kits.

After Daystar zenith, Ana and Tai expressed a desire to visit the canine area on the ground mounts side of the Faire.  Wandering over there, they found traders selling mastiffs (for halflings and gnomes to ride) and dire canines as mounts for bigger people.

As they wandered past the various pens with various canines, Kaikoa and Tai just loved all the puppies.  They came up to a dire corgi enclosure, and Ana, Dryali, and Fine Branch saw all the dogs parading around in a circle, which had attracted an audience.  Ana, though, saw two near the back of the enclosure, hard at work digging their way out.  <Narrator voice:  Grace rolled a nat 20 on investigation for Ana.>  The trainers were not watching!  She pointed it out to the other two.

Dryali pulled out his All-purpose Tool, and used it to acquire the message cantrip.  He sent a message to a trainer he could see, "Looks like you got a couple would-be escapees."  The Rocklit dwarf spun around from the conversation he'd been having, "Who…?  what…?" and when he saw the goings-on, exclaimed, "Oh shit!"  He grabbed another trainer by the arm, a Rock sagani of dwarf extraction, and the Rock sagani chased the dire corgis away from their digging project while the dwarf grabbed a nearby boulder to block the almost-opening from the outside of the enclosure.

Fine Branch watched the dire corgis with interest, but simply could not tell if the parading about the circle was a coordinated distraction.

The Freelancers continued their patrol, but it was otherwise uneventful; the mastiffs were well-behaved, the dire corgis had their boulders, the dire wolves were occupied, and a bit standoffish.  But there were also dire corgi puppies.

Kaikoa and Tai asked after the puppies, and the dwarves were happy to allow the two marks to handle and pet them.  As the Freelancers got kisses and the puppies got belly rubs and tug toys, the Rock sagani explained the puppies were 75 eagles each and took a year to train; if that was too long the trained adults were 350 eagles each.  Tai nodded solemnly, but Kaikoa just ignored the sales pitch.

They moved on to the mastiffs, which Tai was also interested in, and he ended up slobbered by several, as he was very popular.

The next morning, the Freelancers checked in with Mudra in case there was anything to watch out for, but there was nothing.  "Just be fake shoppers," he advised.

They left the central building and wandered north, towards the exotic mount area, but between the building and that area was a group of mongers for various gear, much of which was magically enhanced.  The booths were all in a large pavilion so as to be protected if rain were to occur, with some of them opening out behind in case a person needed to bring their mount for customization.  The Freelancers were suddenly not-so-fake shoppers, then!

There were booths with lances and goggles; barding; a stall selling saddle blankets and caparisons, many of which were magical (a caparison of billowing!  a saddle blanket of protection!  a saddle blanket of spell resistance, which was more expensive!)

Resisting the urge to buy everything, they moved to other mongers.  Another vender had saddlebags of holding, Hostler's Charms, and Skyfall Blanket, which could be snapped taught and used to glide down instead of fall; another had horseshoes of deceit, and a Hunter's Saddle, which had a built-in quiver that always held 3 magic arrows; another vendor was less for mounts, and had a jacket that let you keep your grip on an airship deck.  Another vendor was selling magical lances.

Kaikoa decided this was a good time to get splint barding for Greedy, his golden eagle gryphon, and also get custom saddlebags.  The vendor reacted to his desires by trying to upsell some of his extant saddlebags of holding, and the two got to haggling.  In the end Kaikoa was out 500 eagles for splint barding and custom saddlebags of holding.  Who knows whether the vendor or Kaikoa won that exchange?  Tai, watching the entire performance, decided to get scale barding for Spencer Thundersparks.

Ana and Fine Branch were in the vendor with the saddle blankets, pricing those out.  The saddle blanket of protection was 300 eagles, and the saddle blanket of spell resistance was 10x as much, so they both opted to get one of the former.  Dryali asked about anything the vendor might have that would help keep the mount quiet.  He had a saddleblanket of elvenkind, but considering Alanya's abilities and Dryali's own magic items, he was not convinced it would help and did not buy it.

Ana, meanwhile, went to the barding person to see about studded leather barding for Pelorus (heavier barding would slow him down).  She entered just as the vendor was telling Kaikoa and Tai to bring their mounts later for measuring.  Tai and Kaikoa nodded and took their leave.

While Ana was talking to the barding vendor and Dryali still haggling with the saddleblanket guy, Tai, Kaikoa, and Fine Branch observed a light-fingered human pocketing some of the smaller items from vendor, such as flying goggles and Hostler's Charms.  <Narrator voice:  for the record, Matt rolled a nat 20 on Fine Branch's perception.>  Remembering the purpose of their presence, Kaikoa cast levitate to stash them out of harm's way until they could be dealt with, to no effect.

Dryali rejoined the others, saw the situation, and cast web.  The web did not restrain the thief, but did grossly inconvenience everyone else, and Dryali was met with a bunch of "What the fuck!" from various people.  Tai, unburdened by mount item acquisitions, bumrushed the thief and tackled them.

Fine Branch sauntered over to the pavilion entrance to wait for an escape attempt, as Tai started lecturing the thief, and Dryali apologised to the people he'd enwebbed.  <Narrator voice:  Shari rolled a nat 20 for persuasion.>  Ana joined them with a horse blanket in her arms just as the thief wiggled free, no doubt inspired by Tai's dadly lecture.  Kaikoa grabbed their legs, and Tai re-grabbed their torso.

The thief was very wiggly, but the Freelancers sorted out which items were whose, then Tai and Kaikoa carried the still-wiggling thief back to the central building.  Mudra, very happy that such a theft had been nullified, paid everyone 100 eagles each as a bonus.  By the time they were done with the paperwork, everyone felt they'd earned it.

That afternoon, the Freelancers visited the manticore section.  It sported a solid selection of the various manticores of Skyway:  lion & tiger manticores, which had stabby, pokey scorpion tails; panther and snow leopard manticores, which had normal cat tails but were quiet and fast with attacks.  All of them had dragon wings, and there were traders with adorable kittens for all types.

The Manticores mercenary group, sponsored by House Lykaion, had their own area, which was almost all lion manticores.  The patrolling mercenaries all had gold-washed armour.  Kaikoa was very distracted by the fancy armour, it was half-plate, so not too heavy for flying.

As the Freelancers strolled and looked around, they noticed the corner furthest away from the patrolling  Manticores were the smaller traders:  rough & ready hunter types who would trap and tame wild manticores and sell at the Faire.  They saw 2 lion manticores in one paddock, and 2 tiger manticores in the next one over, and 3-4 panther manticores in the one on the end.  They'd apparently set up a single stand to share between the 3 groups.

However there appeared to be a vast distrust, and the traders were facing off.  The manticores in the paddocks, picking up on the trainers' vibes, were also getting agitated.

That would not do; Fine Branch cast calm emotions on the entire group, and as the people calmed down, the manticores did also.  "You have a minute to take care of the situation," the cleric informed the others pleasantly, and leaned against a pole.

Ana went to the booth, and called out cheerfully, "Helloo!  Seems like something was bothering you,  Seems like it's fine now; so, tell me what was bothering you."  As she was talking, Dryali moved within earshot, but he was more looking at the pretty manticores.

They all started talking, and calm emotions or no, there was still bluster.  Someone looked at someone else, they got mad, the manticores got upset, a third guy got bent, "You are upsetting the manticores!"  Dryali, looking at the lion manticores, face-palmed.  Of course they'd gotten in an argument; someone had pranked the lioness manticore by strapping leather "nuts" to her private region.  That took balls, he thought, looking at the tail stinger, but said nothing.

Ana, who had not seen it, was meanwhile moving the original two people to stand in opposite ends of the booth, assuring them soothingly, "In no time there will be customers flowing."  They ended up scowling at each other, but they had calmed down enough, and a fight was averted.

Another day, another patrol!  On the third day of the Faire, the Freelancers did survive the temptations of the gear vendors to get all the way to the exotic mount area.  They saw for flying mounts there were griffinflies, and also giant bees and wasps, which were more suitable for halflings and gnomes than the bigger people.

Tai <Narrator voice:  for whom David rolled a nat 20 perception> was looking for amphibious mounts.  What could be used as a ground mount that works on a thalassa?  Out of the flyers, the griffinfly was closest.

But there were also ground mounts!  Elephants, a couple mammoths, camels; and also, guard drakes.  These were draconic, but wingless, dumb, and the size of a mastiff.  They were not trained for riding, however.  The four displayed by the trader were blue and green.

The Freelancers wandered around, observing that the area was full of characters, from nobility to servants scurrying about.  The nobility, of course, were interested in the guard drakes, which were running between 9,000-11,000 eagles.  They stopped to talk to the trader.  He explained they were unimpeachably loyal, and could follow fairly complex commands.

Ana:  all the Great Houses of the city would love you.  Loyal, leave miscreants with burn marks
Trader:  of course, the breath relates to the colour
Tai:  so, pseudodragons.  Can they be cross-bred?  What would happen?

 

The conversation devolved into speculation, and continued until some very well-dressed people, accompanied by bodyguards, came over to bargain with him.  The Freelancers took their leave and kept looking around.

Ana wanted to see the elephants and mammoths.  Tai went with her, as he had not seen mammoths since leaving Aurora.  Try as they could, they could not convince the traders to let them ride the creatures, but they were allowed to feed them treats.

There were simply no shenanigans in this area.  Many of the buyers had good bodyguards, the vendors knew what they were doing.  The Freelancers talked to the human woman with the giant bees.  She had long blonde hair and a curiously melodic, calm voice.  "These bees are so friendly," she explained, pronouncing it so "these" and "bees" rhymed exactly.

Kaikoa bought honey from her, and Fine Branch wanted to meet the bees.  They found the size of the creatures disconcerting, and quickly withdrew.  When Dryali found out Kaikoa had bought honey, he bought some too.  It was delicious.

That afternoon, the Freelancers patrolled the hippogryph area.  A lot of people were selling hippogryphs of all types:  riding, courser, destrier, pony.  Some were small groups with just one kind; some larger groups with big paddocks; some traders had tents with eggs; some with foals, some with yearlings.

The Freelancers wandered past a paddock with foals.  They were cute:  the horse and eagle legs were mismatched height for hippogryphs that age, and they would sometimes stumble or even fall.  As they watched, Dryali and Fine Branch noticed a shady-looking fellow near the back of a warm-eggs tent.  He appeared to be a lookout.

Dryali <nodded at fellow>:  wonder if they have a partner, inside that tent.
Ana:  time to go look at some eggs!
Kaikoa:  I'll hang back and watch exits.

As the others moved towards the warm-egg tent, Kaikoa saw the fellow cough into something that appeared to be a copper-wire charm.

The tent was not stuffy, since it was fairly large, but it was warm.  The vendor had the eggs in fleecy "nests" holding 1-3 each.  The tent had a surprisingly large number of people in it:  guards watching the customers, vendors giving their sales pitch, people perusing eggs… and a suspicious-looking couple near the back wall of the tent.

Dryali cast detect magic.  It lit up the various magic items on the Freelancers; the guards' weapons; the vendors had some abjuration on them, and one had a bag of holding; one of the suspicious people had a wire with transmutation… and outside, another bag of holding.  Dryali figured the wire probably gave the person message.

Dryali went back outside and rejoined Kaikoa, using his All-Purpose Tool to learn message.  He told Kaikoa the fellow the Wind sagani was watching had a bag of holding, and there was someone inside with a wire.  Then he cast message several times to tell the Freelancers who were still in the tent about it.

They were still too slow.  The person inside with the wire slit the backof the tent with a daggar, and then both the inside people grabbed eggs and headed out the slit.

Dryali cast web.

• Tai tackled the person who'd slit the tent.  Tai held him; he held the eggs.
• The lookout had seen Dryali cast.  He avoided being restrained by the web and beelined out of the area and directly away from the Dark elf.
  • Dryali said to Kaikoa pleasantly, "I'll bring him back over here."
• Fine Branch stuck their head out of the slit, avoiding the cobwebs.  They saw the lookout running.
  • Fine Branch:  you got that one?
    Dryali:  yep
  • Fine Branch cast an uplevel'd hold person on the two miscreants with eggs, paralyzing them both.  They grabbed the fleece with the eggs in it to stop them from dropping it.
  • Then for good measure they cast spiritual weapon in the form of a frying pan in front of the fleeing lookout.  However it critfailed and somehow ploughed the handle into the dirt, slowing itself down.
• The two paralyzed persons could not do a thing but consider their poor life choices and conclude that "this sucks".
• Kaikoa, taking Dryali at his word, readied to grapple someone in front of him.
• Ana used mage hand to retrieve all the eggs and put them back.

Dryali cast vortex warp to bring the fleeing lookout to right in front of Kaikoa.

• Kaikoa bonked the fellow then grappled him.

At this point, the guards reacted.  "Haaayyyy…..   oh.  Good job."  The Freelancers nodded, and told them they might want to fix the back of the tent.  Then they hauled the three would-be egg thieves back to the central building, to introduce them to Mudra.

Mudra was really happy with this result, and no eggs damaged either.  Again he paid each of  the Freelancers a 100 eagle bonus, but they were stuck with a lot of paperwork.

That evening, back at Freelancers, Damakaios paid out 225 eagles and told them he'd set up the rest of the Faire separately.

• Kaikoa → lvl 7!
• Tai → lvl 8!