Where in the world is Carthrat Sandiego?

[Sierra]

<El-Cideon> The team returns to their hotel after leaving the ruins. Nadia's dinner date goes well enough; Robert is perfectly polite and, of course, picks up the tab. Although he's on the duty the next day and won't be around to drive you out again, he does connect you to a local who owes him a favor. Late in the next morning, you find yourselves back at the Petra hilltop ruin again, refreshed and ready to investigate further.
* Nadia_Chekova is deeply curious to see this mysterious magical world that her new friends have found. Unfortunately she's about a decade too early to make any Narnia references she surely would otherwise.
<Yomi> "Back to the same cavern?" Yomi inquires. "Or we'll explore the other way, first, to make sure there are no hiding surprises for us?"
<Erin> "I'd rather inspect that pillar again! Who knows what it might say? Why, with it, I could piece everything together! Besides, I'm sure the Germans cleared it all out of nasty beasties already," replies Erin, bright and perky.
* Yomi looks at Erin dubiously, before shrugging.
<Erin> "Look, nothing attacked us the first time. That's a clear indicator that it's safe."
<Nadia_Chekova> "I'll of course defer to your superior knowledge of matter arcane," Nadia agrees with an elegant shrug of her own.
* Erin starts to walk towards the centre of the cavern, and gestures to the other women. "Well, then. We hold hands, like so, and..."
<El-Cideon> The bracelet seems as able to teleport three people as two, and soon you're down in the blackness again. Everything looks much the way you left it, the tiled stone platform with the rought passageway branching left and right before you.
* Nadia_Chekova produces her torch and flicks it on, the small beam of light zipping around their surroundings as she gets her first look at the negative zone.
<El-Cideon> Nadia finds herself on a finished stone platform perhaps thirty feet wide. It's clearly an artificial construction. Beyond that she can see a comfortably wide tunnel littered with small stones and debris.
<Erin> "You can't tell much about this place just from the surroundings," notes Erin, flicking on her own torch and starting to head down the tunnel to the left. "And it still feels like we're on the firmament."
<Nadia_Chekova> "Firmament?" Nadia repeats as she follows along, her English not stretching to such archaic terms.
<El-Cideon> Erin finds the tunnel unchanged as she walks along. After a couple hundred feet or so she reaches the carcass her and Yomi found yesterday, now stripped to just a skeleton.
* Yomi is just as disgusted as she was the first time, coming across the corpe.
<Erin> "God's Earth," clarifies Erin. "Were we transported to somewhere else in the world, or to another place entirely? I believe the former."
<Nadia_Chekova> "Ahh," Nadia nods, giving the skeleton a wide berth. "Perhaps somewhere deeper underground?"
<Erin> "It would have to be quite deep indeed," admits Erin. "Still, we should find out a bit more in just a few minutes..."
<El-Cideon> Soon the group arrives in the wide cavern centered around the strange monument. Things are just as Erin and Yomi left them, the black stone cylinder sitting impassively in its overhanging shelter.
<El-Cideon> *OOC: blue, not black. Got my colors mixed up, the shelter is black, not the cylinder. >.>
<Yomi> "Even with the right magic, it will take a long time to decypher," Yomi muses, deciding to wait by the entrance to the cavern. "Unless you can share the ability to read it with others, Erin?"
* Nadia_Chekova plays her torch over the cylinder, giving it a look before she turns her attention to the surrounding cavern, seeing if it leads anywhere else.
<El-Cideon> Nadia notices a fine crack bisecting the cylinder about halfway up its height. The cavern itself is otherwise unremarkable; there are no apparent exits save for the one you entered by.
<Erin> "I can't do that. But I can take notes," replies Erin. "Copying it down is impossible, but surely..." She shakes her head, and whispers a few strange syllables under her breath; after a moment longer, she touches the cylinder, and starts to read!
<El-Cideon> Erin feels the words reshape themselves in her head as her magic processes the writing into a form she'd understand. Even then it takes a moment to sort out what she's seeing, because the vast bulk of the inscriptions are not actual sentences or statements--most of it seems to be a list of names. (more)
<El-Cideon> Names it would be difficult to pronounce, at that, as they don't sound like they stem from any common tongue; there are a lot of throaty, guttural noises that you might be able to reproduce if you don't mind sounding like you're choking. The few actual pronouncement on the monument suffer from odd syntax that doesn't sit easily in Erin's mind, but a few phrases pop out: "Those sacrificed," "immortalized in stone," "**** held in perpetuity." (more)
<El-Cideon> "**** held in perpetuity." One word in that last phrase doesn't quite translate. Trying to focus on it only gives an impression of overwhelming hatred for something abhorrent, as if some driving emotion of the monument's creators were reaching out across the years.
<Erin> "It's a tombstone," comments Erin, after just a few minutes of going through the pillar. "Well. From just the writing, I can tell this pillar wasn't built by humans, unless they all had a terrible case of the 'flu."
<Yomi> "Who, then?" Yomi asks with interest, coming closer.
<Nadia_Chekova> "More demons?" Nadia asks with a dubious look towards Yomi.
<Erin> "I'm sorry, I don't know the languages source," replies Erin, writing down the key phrases and showing them to Yomi and Erin. "Whoever they were, they spent a lot of lives to achieve their goals here."
* Yomi shrugs at Nadia's look. "Never saw any demonic monuments like this before, but I guess it could always be a first?"
<Erin> "If they were demons, they seem like awfully respectful ones."
<Yomi> "Never seen those kinds of monuments before, either," Yomi helpfully volunteers. "I suppose they must exist, if demons do."
<Erin> "Well, I can't get much more from this. The individual names won't do much good to us, and pronouncing them would probably ruin my soprano."
<Yomi> "So did the Germans come here for a nice read? Or did they cause that crack we saw when we came here yesterday, Erin?"
<Erin> "I would assume they had something to do with it," replies Erin. "But I'd really rather that they didn't, as it's not comforting to think our opponents can defeat magic of this magnitude."
<Nadia_Chekova> "What's so powerful about it?" Nadia asks, not overly impressed by the cracked cylinder.
<Erin> "It was thrumming with potency! But you can't tell unless you're sensitive to such things," replies Erin, loftily slipping her notebook away.
<Yomi> "That was certainly convincing," Yomi mutters, before raising her voice as she suggests, "Let's explore in the other direction now?"
<Nadia_Chekova> "And vaguely sordid," Nadia mutters, shaking her head and starting off in the other direction as requested.
<El-Cideon> roll 1d100
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 1d100 and gets 54."12 [1d100=54]
<El-Cideon> The tunnel is deathly silent as the three women make their way back where they came from, no sounds or signs of life around them save for the noise of their own footfalls. Passing the platform on which they arrived, the tunnel continues for about ten minutes of walking, verring a bit to the right as it goes, before they find anything of note. (more)
<El-Cideon> There's a depression in the cave floor, filled with something that looks vaguely like mud. A break in the ceiling above rises up into unseen blackness; moisture from this opening occasionally drips into the mud pool. The depression crosses the breadth of the tunnel and is about seven feet across.
<El-Cideon> OOC: listen checks go
<Erin> roll 1d20+2 the ones I'm bad at
* Hatbot --> "Erin rolls 1d20+2 the ones I'm bad at and gets 19."12 [1d20=17]
<Yomi> roll 1d20 I'll get right on that
* Hatbot --> "Yomi rolls 1d20 I'll get right on that and gets 16."12 [1d20=16]
<Nadia_Chekova> roll 1d20
* Hatbot --> "Nadia_Chekova rolls 1d20 and gets 10."12 [1d20=10]
<Erin> "There's something in there..." murmurs Erin, not looking too eager to peer down or glance up into the ugly depths.
* Yomi looks ahead to estimate whether passing by the depression is possible, or if they should give up and leave.
<El-Cideon> The depression is about seven feet across; it might be possible to jump it. There's also a slightly raised ledge along one side of the passageway, perhaps a bit less than a foot wide, that someone could conceivably sidle across.
* Nadia_Chekova plays her torchbeam across the mud at Erin's prompting, looking for any signs of 'something'.
<El-Cideon> There's no obvious movement on the surface of the mud pool, save for the periodic impact of water droplets from above.
<Yomi> "How much do we want to get across?"
<Erin> "We can jump, it's not that far," replies Erin, backing up to get some slack on her forthcoming leap.
<Nadia_Chekova> "Considering we now lack any leads on our teutonic thieves, I find myself somewhat eager to salvage something from this expedition," Nadia replies, backing up a bit so she can take a proper run up before she charges onwards and leaps mightily across the mud!
<El-Cideon> OOC: roll jump at will, then.
<Nadia_Chekova> roll 1d20+3 alas I took climb instead of jump
* Hatbot --> "Nadia_Chekova rolls 1d20+3 alas I took climb instead of jump and gets 23."12 [1d20=20]
<Yomi> Given the eagerness of her companions, Yomi can only follow!
<Yomi> roll 1d20+9
* Hatbot --> "Yomi rolls 1d20+9 and gets 24."12 [1d20=15]
<Erin> roll 1d20+1 it's a strength check!
* Hatbot --> "Erin rolls 1d20+1 it's a strength check! and gets 15."12 [1d20=14]
<El-Cideon> Everyone makes the jump with a few feet to spare. Whatever mystery lurks in the depression will remain such for now. The group finds their passage unimpeded on the other side, at least for another four hundred or so feet. (more)
<El-Cideon> In time they come to what looks like the result of some long-ago rockslide. The roof of the cavern here has tumbled down into the passageway and blocked most of it from view. Two ways of slipping past are apparent, if one were to scramble up the slope of loose rocks: near the top of the incline is a small opening in the debris that one could crawl through if so inclined, and the opening in the ceiling that the rocks crashed through may lead to another cave. (more)
<El-Cideon>  that the rocks crashed through may lead to another cave. (more)
<El-Cideon> Coming close to the rockslide, another feature comes to light: the top of of a humanoid skeleton, the legs presumably caught under the rocks.
<Yomi> "I'll try to climb past this, and give you a shout if it's safe?" Yomi proposes, attempting just that.
* Nadia_Chekova goes to examine the skeleton, trying to see if it has any identifying features.
<Erin> "Be careful," advises Erin, a bit needlessly.
<El-Cideon> OOC: roll climb if you're going for it, Yomi.
<Yomi> roll 1d20+9
* Hatbot --> "Yomi rolls 1d20+9 and gets 27."12 [1d20=18]
<El-Cideon> The skeleton...could possibly be mistaken for a deformed human, if one were not looking closely. The skull is the wrong shape, though, squat and elongated with a protruding jaw. Near one of the hands is a rusted bit of metal that could've been a spearhead once.
* Nadia_Chekova shudders at the obvious inhumanity of the ossified remains. She'd like to think it's a freak, or an ape, but... "Is this... a demon?" she asks, voice laden with trepidation at more evidence than Yomi's strange accusations made at stinky vagrants.
<El-Cideon> Yomi has no difficulty finding handholds in the incline. Peering into the opening in the wall shows that the passage continues; almost out of sight is an opening of some sort that suggests the passage widens considerably, but no more can be made out from this distance.
<Yomi> "I believe we can get past this obstacle," Yomi calls back, checking that the barricade is in no danger of collapsing before proceeding past the opening.
* Nadia_Chekova backs away from the skeleton before she finds a path up the fallen rocks to follow Yomi.
<Erin> "I don't know what I'd call it. Demon doesn't seem quite right," replies Erin, glancing up the debris and starting to try and climb up herself.
<El-Cideon> There are no obvious signs of another cave-in as Yomi examines the rocks around her.
<Nadia_Chekova> roll 1d20+9
* Hatbot --> "Nadia_Chekova rolls 1d20+9 and gets 21."12 [1d20=12]
<Erin> roll 1d20+1 this physical stuff...
* Hatbot --> "Erin rolls 1d20+1 this physical stuff... and gets 7."12 [1d20=6]
<El-Cideon> Nadia is able to scramble up the incline easily, this being child's play for a seasoned catburglar. Erin has less success, finding herself struggling to maintain her hold halfway up the slope. OOC: you failed the check, but not by enough to fall. You're free to try again.
* Yomi reaches down towards Erin, to help pull her the rest of the way up!
* Kallen (~carthrat@c122-107-246-130.eburwd9.vic.optusnet.com.au) has joined #HometownHeroes
<El-Cideon> OOC: I guess we can call that aid another if you want.
<Yomi> roll 1d20+9 sure
* Hatbot --> "Yomi rolls 1d20+9 sure and gets 18."12 [1d20=9]
* Erin (~carthrat@c122-107-246-130.eburwd9.vic.optusnet.com.au) Quit (Ping timeout)
* Kallen is now known as Erin
<El-Cideon> With time and persistence (not to mention a helping hand from Yomi) Erin is able to scale the wall and cross through to the other side. Not far past the rockslide, the tunnel opens up into a grand cavern. It's a wide, empty space far too great to be illuminated by your flashlights. (more)
<El-Cideon> A spar of rock extends out into the midst of this great void for about twenty feet and for a few feet to either side of the opening, but you can see no roof, ceiling, or walls to the cavern no matter which way you look. (more)
<El-Cideon> The piece of rock jutting out into the abyss has the look of regular proportions, as though it was constructed.
* Erin shines her torch all around, and glances at the other women. "Your guess for a direction is as good as mine, although I'm not so sure I want to cast out into the unknown around here," she admits.
<Nadia_Chekova> "I don't think there's anywhere we can go," Nadia admits, peering over the edge of the outcropping and shining her torch down.
<El-Cideon> Your flashlight is unable to illuminate the bottom. You can spot what look like scorch marks at the edge of the broken spar of stone, though.
<Yomi> "There was a chance to go up instead, so we could try that," Yomi suggests. "Might be better than exploring a dark, limitless cavern."
<Nadia_Chekova> "I think that's for the best," Nadia agrees, going back to climb up the fallen rocks to reach the higher level, if it exists.
<Erin> "Besides, there may be nothing out there to find," replies Erin. "Well, shall we, then?"
<Nadia_Chekova> roll 1d20+9
* Hatbot --> "Nadia_Chekova rolls 1d20+9 and gets 21."12 [1d20=12]
<Yomi> roll 1d20+9
* Hatbot --> "Yomi rolls 1d20+9 and gets 14."12 [1d20=5]
<El-Cideon> Nadia pulls herself up into the cavern above with ease, with Erin and Yomi right behind her. Again you find yourselves in a passageway branching left and right, though this space is much smaller--you can barely stand up straight here. To the left your flashlight barely illuminates the termination of that branch, with a small pile of debris at the end. The rightmost passage extends a little father than you can see.
* Nadia_Chekova crouches a bit to walk over to the left and examine the debris for anything interesting.
* Yomi decides to investigate the rightmost passage, for her part.
* Erin is ready to move in whichever direction seems the more promising!
<El-Cideon> Most of the rubble look like solid conglomerations of rust, like metal tools left out for ages. Three things stand out, though: a deep red stone ring, a raw, uncut red gem still encrusted with bits of native stone, and an egg-shaped crystalline bauble that seems to radiate a cold greater than the chill in the air around you.
<Nadia_Chekova> "Erin?" Nadia waves the sage over. "I think some of these baubles might be magical."
<El-Cideon> Yomi finds that the rightmost passageway ends soon enough, narrowing to a point with a few minor tunnels too small for a human to fit through; animals may use them for passage, perhaps. There's something else waiting at the end of the tunnel, though--(more)
* Erin wanders over to the crumbled debris, attuning her vision to the eddies of magic with a word!
<Erin> roll 2#1d20+11 ring, ball
* Hatbot --> "Erin rolls 2#1d20+11 ring, ball and gets 42."12 [2#1d20+11 = 28, 14]
<El-Cideon> There's a ripple in the air before Yomi, like a discolored patch of space the green of rot and infected wounds. It's at first formless but takes on a vaguely humanoid shape as it sees her, turning towards her with arms outstretched!
<El-Cideon> OOC: init Yomi and others if they're getting involed.
<Erin> roll 1d20+7 but the baubles are shiny
* Hatbot --> "Erin rolls 1d20+7 but the baubles are shiny and gets 16."12 [1d20=9]
<Yomi> roll 1d20+1
* Hatbot --> "Yomi rolls 1d20+1 and gets 2."12 [1d20=1]
<El-Cideon> roll 1d20+4 weird thing init
<Nadia_Chekova> roll 1d20+7 I'll get involved if I hear anything
* Hatbot --> "Nadia_Chekova rolls 1d20+7 I'll get involved if I hear anything and gets 10."12 [1d20=3]
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 1d20+4 weird thing init and gets 17."12 [1d20=13]
* Retrieving #HometownHeroes modes...
* El-Cideon changes topic to 'Larval Shade (17) > Erin (16) > Nadia (10) > Yomi (2)'
<El-Cideon> The creature glides forward soundlessly, reaching out to try and take Yomi into its embrace.
<El-Cideon> roll 1d20+5
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 1d20+5 and gets 13."12 [1d20=8]
<El-Cideon> OOC: that's a miss even flatfooted. AoO if you want, Yomi.
<Yomi> Cursing at an unclean thing getting the jump on her so easily, Yomi scrambles for her sword, tearing through the sash keeping it bound!
<Yomi> OOC: I would if I had it drawn
<El-Cideon> OOC: Haha. Okay, Erin/Nadia, doing anything? You haven't heard any noise yet, but Yomi could yell for you easily.
* Nadia_Chekova continues to watch Erin do her magical thing, entirely unaware that Yomi is in trouble.
<Erin> "These are interesting baubles indeed!" remarks Erin, reaching out to slip on the ring to see what it does.
<El-Cideon> OOC: yomi, then.
<El-Cideon> Erin feels...safer, and a little sleeker, as though someone seeking to do her harm would have a little more trouble landing a blow than they normally would.
<Yomi> With a cry of "Evil spirit, begone!" in her native tongue, Yomi draws Michael 12 and stabs it deep into her assailant! She begins retreating immediately afterwards, seeking to get to a spot where she can fight in earnest, pulling on the sheath as she goes to slash the sword chained to it through the thing's innards painfully.
<Yomi> roll 1d20+11
* Hatbot --> "Yomi rolls 1d20+11 and gets 28."12 [1d20=17]
<Yomi> roll 1d20+11 surge
* Hatbot --> "Yomi rolls 1d20+11 surge and gets 23."12 [1d20=12]
<El-Cideon> OOC: both hit.
<Yomi> roll 2#2d6+9 die, creepy thing!
* Hatbot --> "Yomi rolls 2#2d6+9 die, creepy thing! and gets 30."12 [2#2d6+9 = 15, 15]
<El-Cideon> With a pained howl, the creature writhes and then dissipates in a cloud of feathery wisps, which soon disappear altogether. OOC: free act, I need to make monsters that die less quickly
* Yomi decides against investigating that dead end further, retreating back to the intersection.
* Nadia_Chekova looks over at the yelling and howling, shining her torch in the direction Yomi went.
* Erin pulls her gun and points it in Yomi's direction! "An evil spirit? Where?!" she demands, shining the torch down the cavern!
<Yomi> "Are we done here?" Yomi asks as she makes her way back, sword drawn.
<Nadia_Chekova> "What was all that noise about?" Nadia asks, seeing Yomi returning without any fuss.
* Erin raises the gun for a moment, and glances at Erin, nonplussed. "Well, it can't have been that bad," she decides, turning back to the orb and gingerly deciding to try and pick it up.
<Yomi> "What looks rotted and infected and disappears into feathery wisps when slain?" Yomi asks back. "Beats me on the specifics."
<El-Cideon> The crystal egg is very cold, you'd guess somewhere around the freezing point of water, but does nothing in particular as you pick it up.
<Nadia_Chekova> "A demon? You'd know better than I," Nadia shrugs, nonetheless comforted that such things can be killed. "We've found some magical trinkets here - Erin is trying to determine their purpose."
<Erin> "The ring is probably a protective charm," remarks Erin, slipping it off her own finger and passing it to Yomi. "I think you need it more than me. The gem there isn't magical, but it might be valuable anyway, I don't really know. And this..."
<Erin> OOC: Some kind of arcane lore check?
<Erin> OOC: Man, I need to learn ID.
<Yomi> "Probably a ghost or vengeful spirit of some sort. I didn't have much time to familiarize myself with them in the West," Yomi muses, taking the ring and observing it, before experimentally putting it on.
<El-Cideon> Yomi feels as though her foes will have to work slightly harder to strike her now. It's a nice feeling!
<Yomi> "Let's work well together from now on," Yomi feels obligated to tell the pleasant ring.
<Erin> "...I don't know what this is," finishes Erin, juggling the ball from hand to hand. "Maybe it can be used to chill drinks?"
<Nadia_Chekova> "Maybe they used it to keep food fresh before refrigeration?" Nadia shrugs. "I suppose it's time to go now, though... but where will we go to next?"
<Erin> "We could go that way? Was anything else there, Yomi?" asks Erin, glancing down the tunnel.
<Yomi> "It chills things, I take it?" Yomi asks. "You should check to see how it affects fire, or if it can boost your ice-based elemental spells." She pauses, then. "Do you have elemental spells like that?"
* Yomi glances back. "A dead end, with only tunnels fit for animals to scurry through. We don't want to go there."
<Erin> "No, they aren't that useful," replies Erin, dismissively. "I could just buy a lighter, or a fridge."
<Yomi> "Maybe it can let you cast them? They're more useful than you'd think!"
<Erin> "Well, being able to freeze something in a hurry could, I suppose, be just what I need... maybe if I need to preserve something and take it somewhere else..."
* Nadia_Chekova proceeds to climb back down to the passage below.
<Nadia_Chekova> roll 1d20+9
* Hatbot --> "Nadia_Chekova rolls 1d20+9 and gets 23."12 [1d20=14]
* Erin follows suit, although with a good deal less grace and a great deal more scrabbling.
<Nadia_Chekova> Once down, she then runs along to jump over the mud!
<Nadia_Chekova> roll 1d20+3
* Hatbot --> "Nadia_Chekova rolls 1d20+3 and gets 10."12 [1d20=7]
<El-Cideon> Nadia's coordination fails her this time and she falls just short of the other side. She tumbles to her knees in the sucking cold of the mud pool. It's not very deep, perhaps up to your calves when standing, but it IS decidedly unpleasant.
<El-Cideon> roll 1d4
* Hatbot --> "El-Cideon rolls 1d4 and gets 3."12 [1d4=3]
<El-Cideon> OOC: you fell in, but as far as you can tell nothing's happening yet.
<Nadia_Chekova> Ewww! Nadia is deeply unhappy as she grabs onto the other side and hauls herself up and out of the goop.
<Nadia_Chekova> roll 1d20+9 climb?
* Hatbot --> "Nadia_Chekova rolls 1d20+9 climb? and gets 19."12 [1d20=10]
<El-Cideon> Getting out is simple enough and you seem to have suffered no ill effects from the pool. It'll be a bitch getting those shoes clean again, though.
* Yomi tones down on the acrobatics as she makes her way across, both to be on the safe side and to not invite pointless jealousy.
* Erin is not acrobatic at all as she flings herself from one end of the pit to the other!
<Erin> roll 1d20+1
* Hatbot --> "Erin rolls 1d20+1 and gets 12."12 [1d20=11]
<El-Cideon> OOC: Hah, just cleared it.
<El-Cideon> The light of day is most welcome after trekking through the cold reaches of the mysterious cave, and soon enough you're back on the road to Jerusalem. You return to your hotel with no further events, leaving you with just the task of determining what to do next.
* Nadia_Chekova gets herself cleaned up as best she can and resolves to try and pick up a new pair of shoes at the first opportunity. "So, aside from that mention of a collection team in Mecca, it seems that we have no real clues as to where our adversaries will travel next," she observes. "On the other hand, Ivo may have come back here after going to Petra yesterday, so the trail might not be cold."
<Erin> "Despite my hopes, it doesn't seem like this can lead to guess directly the path of our quarry," acknowledges Erin, picking at her hair. "It still doesn't tell us why they wanted our belongings..."
<Yomi> "Yes, no help there," Yomi agrees rather despondently.
<Nadia_Chekova> "Well, I need to go buy new shoes and I can try asking around to see if anyone recalls where the big gang of germans were headed?" Nadia suggests, running dry on ideas.
<Erin> "Could it be possible to tail Ivo? I suppose he must be leaving Jerusalem already- yes, that," replies Erin. "If it fails, I can ask Grace to scry on him, but that doesn't help us, you know. Get ahead in the game."
<Yomi> "How about framing Ivo and getting him arrested, then?"
<Erin> "If he hasn't left Jerusalem yet, then that could certainly be arranged," replies Erin, glancing up. "But it wouldn't be possible until, at the earliest, tomorrow morning."
<Yomi> "Actually...." Yomi considers. "If one of the germans was framed, and we had a way of keeping tabs on the investigation, then the local authorities might well discover when the germans left and even where."
<Erin> "It could create trouble for them wherever they go, at the least. Perhaps if they had a reputation as jewel thieves throughout the mediterranean..."
<Nadia_Chekova> "I could perhaps try to befriend a policeman if such an investigation were to be started, and cajole what information we need from him," Nadia volunteers.
<Yomi> "I doubt I could do much without leaving more of an impression than our germans, unless your magic could change the way I look, Erin," Yomi regretfully admits.
<Erin> "It can't," confirms Erin. "It's all very self-oriented. Well, perhaps we can use what's left of the afternoon to find a likely stage?"
<Yomi> "If it comes to that, I could try and sell the gem we found to a jeweler? If you made your entrace after the gem got appraised, it should lend support to the entire thing."
<Erin> "If you claimed it was yours in the first place, they'd surely be more amenable to letting you keep tabs on the investigation, too!"
<Yomi> "Or Nadia could use it as a starting point to cajole her information," Yomi agrees. "It's somewhat of a desperation plan, but let's try it?"
<Nadia_Chekova> roll 1d20+10 I want to sell gems and have no idea where, please don't rob me because I'm a clueless foreign woman!
* Hatbot --> "Nadia_Chekova rolls 1d20+10 I want to sell gems and have no idea where, please don't rob me because I'm a clueless foreign woman! and gets 26."12 [1d20=16]
<El-Cideon> Scouting for locations provides three likely candidates. All of them are within secure, well-patrolled areas of the city, likely due to last year's riots making relocating to the more reliably calm areas doubly attractive for shops with such expensive stock. Ahmed Zapa's shop is reputed to have a paranoid and unfriendly proprietor (he was robbed just last year), but also fronts on a very busy market square, (more)
<El-Cideon> Rumi's diamonds is run by an old woman but the shop itself provides no obvious escape plans in case you're spotted by someone on the street, Silversmith's is run by an American expatriate and has a convenient alleyway halfway down the block should someone need to make a runner.
* Nadia_Chekova gives all this information to Erin to let her make an informed decision based on her own capabilities.
<Erin> "Silversmith seems like the obivous choice," states Erin, after learning of the candidates. "I suppose it won't make as big of an impact as a brazen robbery in the market square, but I do have to get away with it, after all."
<Yomi> "At least until you can shrug off bullets and fly in a pinch?"
<Nadia_Chekova> "It's not the sort of thing I'd know much about," Nadia admits. The point of all her larcenous endeavours has been to avoid being seen, after all.
<Yomi> "I could linger by the alley, and accidentally get in the way of any pursuit or misdirect it," Yomi offers.
<Erin> "Yes, and I suppose I'll be riding a broomstick and kidnapping children, too," mutters Erin, and she nods. "This almost sounds like a plan."
<El-Cideon> So Nadia makes her way to Silversmith's. It's a cramped little shop, but it's clean and well-organized. There's a decent amount of pedestrian traffic outside, people going to work or picking up food from other stores along the way. The alleyway twists out of sight after about twenty feet, you can see. (more)
<El-Cideon> the proprietor himself is sandy-haired and likely approaching middle age. He's reading a book but looks up as you walk in. He smiles and nods, apparently waiting for you to speak first.
<Nadia_Chekova> "Hello, sir," Nadia gives the man a smile, approaching the counter. "I was wondering, do you deal in uncut gems?"
<El-Cideon> "I've been known to buy a few," he responds in English. "Usually I get my stock from a corporate source, but I'll pick up whatever folks bring in if the quality's right."
* Nadia_Chekova nods. "I'm no expert so I don't even know if this is worth anything, but perhaps you could appraise it for me and we'll see from there?" she offers, reaching into her handbag and pulling out the uncut stone.
<El-Cideon> The shopkeeper takes the gem, takes a moment to examine it with an eyepiece, and whistles appreciatively. "Ruby. Nice one too. Where'd you find this? No, don't tell me--that way I don't have to lie if someone comes asking about it. No offense, you look a decent girl, just most folks don't go walking around with a rock like this in my experience. If you want to part with it, I could give you..." He quotes a figure.
<El-Cideon> OOC: wealth 14 is what he's offering, basically.
* Nadia_Chekova smiles understandingly at his unwillingness to ask too many questions - it's a game she's played before, after all. "If I do carry around gems I like them to be pretty. Since money is more immediately useful than a valuable but dirty rock, I'll take that deal," she agrees.
<El-Cideon> "Excellent," he says, counting out a stack of cash for you before handing it over. "You don't need any help to be pretty anyway," he adds.
<Nadia_Chekova> "Charmer," Nadia laughs, taking the stack of notes and folding them up neatly before stuffing them into her purse. "Have a good day, sir," she bids him farewell, heading out and intending to quickly get lost so she can't be tied to Ivo's crimes.
<El-Cideon> "You too," he says in parting.
<Erin> A minute or two later, a short, harried and angry-looking man barges into the shop, rubbing a hand through his hair and glancing about. He makes a bit of a show of looking through the display cases, lingering at some of the higher-priced diamond rings, and then moves towards the register- promptly pulling out a thin-barreled pistol and levelling it at the shopkeeper's head-
<Erin> "This is a robbery!" he declares, in a throat voice, and the pistol is armed with a click. "Don't do anything stupid, you hear me?"
<El-Cideon> The shopkeer starts to drawl a lazy "What I can do you for?" before cutting off midsentence at the sight of the gun. He raises his hands reflexively. "Alright, alright," he sighs. "No trouble here, see?" He opens the register with one hand and starts to transfer the cash to the counter.
<El-Cideon> He finished and then looks at you. "All I've got look and see for yourself." He nudges the register to one side so you can get an easy look inside. It's empty.
<Erin> "You did well, friend," remarks the robber, sliding the cash into a satchel. "You done this before, huh? Bad luck that ol' Ivo found you again, eh?" He backs away from the shopkeeper, keeping the gun trained on him a moment- and then wiggles the gun to one side. "Farewell, until we meet again!" Glancing over his shoulder, the robber rushes outside the store!
<El-Cideon> The shopkeep stays where he is, at least as long as Erin can see him. OOC: immediate actions once you're outside?
<Erin> OOC: Run to alley, decloak, taxi to someplace else
<El-Cideon> The alley's empty. Though you get a few strange looks as you rush down the street, no one pays attention for more than a couple seconds or so. As you drop your disguise, you can hear angry shouting from back by the store.
* Erin belives it prudent, in fact, to summon a second disguise (as an unassuming local), and she heads out of the alley and mingles with local crowds for a while before heading back to the rendevous spot.
<El-Cideon> You can spy the shopkeeper insistently questioning the crowds before you turn away. Some of them look quite disturbed by this behavior, perhaps because he's holding a revolver in broad daylight. He doesn't seem to take any interest in your new persona though, and you're able to slip away without trouble.
<El-Cideon> -------------------------------