Wheels came off the rails for this meeting. I write my adventures in advance, laying them out before the party runs into them - it's a combination of me being fully prepared as well as having the general path of the adventure already in place. The group is always free to do what they want, but sometimes they do go in their direction and I have to DM off the cuff.
I actually like making the shit up as I go along. And it's a good thing because that's exactly what I did here about half way through the night. The group is moving in whatever direction they feel they need to - and we have 7 distinct and strong willed characters around the table - each with their own opinion on what's important and what should be done next and in what order.
Write up follows:
Flimflam was awakened late at night by Whosea who needed to seriously pee. The gnomish druid took Whosea for a short walk outside before coming back in to get an interrupted night sleep. As for the rest of the group, Tempi had the hardest time waking up as he had been very drunk the night before. His father was unresponsive to his plight and suggested strongly again that the younger Rhyback child should leave the house at some point and have his own place.
By 7 AM we had all reconvened at the Waywocket home where we talked about what our plans were for the day. The main crux of the conversation was a 3 way round about between Device, Flimflam, and Ironboar – with the orcish priest complaining that Flimflam was letting his son run away with his actions and not trying to reign him in. They talked for awhile but honestly there was little resolved.
We had settled on the fact that we should scout Tanner’s Way, the large stretch of street and run down hovels on the south east corner of town around where the old Tannery was. It was an unsafe place under the best of times but we were thinking of going there and shaking down the residents there for whatever we could find or get in order to locate Lirea and Bradone Broman.
We spent some time talking about splitting up and covering the main roadways, and maybe placing someone with a bow on a rooftop to scout out for any fleeing people.
It was about 8 when we had a knock at the door, a young man looking for Fist’al. The elven scout came forward and received a cryptic message that long and short said the Broman’s were not in Tanner’s Way and in fact, one of them was watching the house – this house, right now.
Whazzawhat?
We checked every window and looked everywhere. We noted that the back of the Waywocket home was in visible sight of the old Broman home. But even after 10 minutes of careful checking at the windows, we could see no sign of any watchers there. Eventually Fist’al and Marcus climbed onto the thatch roof and stayed low, looking at the Broman house from a higher loft. Still didn’t see anyone.
Eventually Fist’al did note that we were being watched – but not from the Broman house – from the gallows on the west end of town square. There were people under the gallows (only about 110’ from the Waywocket front door) and they were the watchers. Marcus climbed down and went back in, telling the rest of the group of what was going on.
We came up with a plan. We would all leave the house, out the back door, through the garden, over the hedge all, and around the side street. From there we would come upon the group from behind them by coming around the armory. Everything went without a hitch and when we arrived at the armory, Fist’al and Marcus stayed further behind with bows out and arrows at the ready.
The group approached the gallows – there were three thugs and Bradone and they were sharing a pair of ale jacks amongst themselves. It was a surprise that we were there and they tripped over themselves a bit in an effort to avoid a confrontation that was already here. Bradone spoke to the group and Flimflam was the speaker for us. He admitted he was watching the house, said he was allowed to. Tomorrow he’d watch a different house.
Then he stonewalled and did not answer any question directly, outright lying in some places. It wasn’t until Ironboar began by commenting on his sister and her slutty ways that he grew wroth. The party was trying to goad him into a fight. The smell of roses was getting strong off of him and he was developing a strange tic. Two of his friends made to run and then he lunged forward. Fist’al shot, hitting the Broman elder in the leg and then in the back. Marcus held his blow. Tempi fell upon the other thug, wrapping his arms around his neck and driving his knee in his gut. They went down punching and struggling but the half-orc’s strength was beyond measure.
As for Bradone, Ironboar was fighting with him as Whosea made to bite at his legs. It was when the 9” knife blade came out and the Broman male started quivering and shouting and slobbering, stabbing it into the gnome barbarian’s shoulder that Ironboar let himself go. He let his bloodlust take over, Grabbing the knife and twisting. There was the sickening crunch of breaking fingers and then he stabbed Bradone.
16 times.
5 of them in the neck.
At this point the militia arrived and we were able to calm Ironboar down. Enough people verified that we were attacked first and did defend ourselves. Ironboar was reprimanded that he should be more like Tempi and show some restraint (which did draw a chuckle). As for Broman, a fast Cure Minor brought him stable and he was bandaged up. From there he was going to be brought to the jail and we spent a few minutes answering questions (attacks in town, arrows flying, an almost death – adventuring charter or not – we had to step carefully as this was NOT the wild west and we had to answer for our actions).
We hoped to be able to question Bradone after he was better and as it was Plantmonth the 3rd and roughly 9:30, we talked about what our next actions were and what to do next.
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