POVERO

[ewancummins]

"They are down there! Lets get them before they escape!"

Unlike his fully human sister, Tom can see in the dark.

He hurries down the steps, Gem running at his side.

But when he gets to the bottom, he see no robbers anyplace. He's stepped down into a cellar about the size of the main room in the house above. Cool masonry walls. Shelves of some sort against three of the walls. Some trash.
Vague heat signatures, but those fade almost as quickly as he notices them.

[steveflam]

Gertie says before they walk down "THey said theyre going into the cellar.. must be a way out."

[ewancummins]

"They are down there! Lets get them before they escape!"

Unlike his fully human sister, Tom can see in the dark.

He hurries down the steps, Gem running at his side.

But when he gets to the bottom, he see no robbers anyplace. He's stepped down into a cellar about the size of the main room in the house above. Cool masonry walls. Shelves of some sort against three of the walls. Some trash.
Vague heat signatures, but those fade almost as quickly as he notices them.

GEM pulls away from his master. The dog heads for the north wall of the cellar. He sniffs about near a tall shelf. He growls, and begins scratching at the wall near the shelf.

[alhoon]

Fild, again, puts the Arquebus on his back and rushes down the stairs after Tom. "Let's look for secret doors, where the red comes from" he says, referring to the heat signature. "Don't you guys can see them magically?" he asks. "I had a friend that said elves could do that. Well, not a friend, more like a neighbor... " he says as he begins to search for a secret door.
"he was a gnome of course, he had a very lovely daughter, but she never paid me any attention. Bretagenda Lamartenra Aquamarine was her name. Well, Aquamarine was her nickname, cause her father, the one that told me the story about you guys and doors, gave her mother an aquamarine for good luck once Breta was born."

Seeing the dog scratching the wall, Fild interrupts his story that nobody cared to listen. He nods to Van to keep searching, and stands next to the dog, ready to pounce on enemies.

[VAN]

"Good boy!"

Turning to Gertie Tom says:

"There should be a secret door here sister. Lets find it!"

As searching replies to Fild:

"Sometimes we can yes, but not always. If it's very well concealed even our keen sight fails to spot it. But where genes fail ability gets in! Me and Gertie can search and find it."

[ewancummins]

"Good boy!"

Turning to Gertie Tom says:

"There should be a secret door here sister. Lets find it!"

Of course, Gertie cannot even see the wall. The cellar is lit only by the red tip of the slow match of the gnome's arquebus. Which is hardly enough light for a human.

[steveflam]

"Get some light over here,,, it'll help us search better."

[steveflam]

AFter getting Tom's lantern she takes a closer look where Gem was barking with Tom.

[VAN]

Tom gets back to searching but also says:

"Gertie, please if I tell you so turn it off so you will not become a target when we get close to them."

[ewancummins]

CELLAR





GERTIE discovers a door in the wall, painted gray to look like masonry and partly covered by the shelf. The floor in that area seems unusually clear of dust.
Someone might have shoved this shelf out of the way to clear the door enough to enter it.

But the door seems to be locked.


GERTIE has trouble with the lock, despite its simplicity, but manages after some fiddling to spring it with her picks.

[ewancummins]

GROUND FLOOR


Damien darts into the main room of the house. He finds Alfonse and tells the Mage, "Watchmen. Maybe seven or eight. I think they maybe spotted me. They are headed this way, with a lantern and pole-arms. "

[Varrus the Ethical]

Civic Temple

Titus lays all thee doves and the dagger on the Altar, and kneels before the statue of the Speaker of Storms, waiting for a sign.

He doesn't wait for long. From the vaulted ceiling above, a large owl swoops down and snatches two of the doves with its talons, and flies back towards the entrance.

Titus stanches up the remaining dove and chases after the owl as it flies out the temple door.

"My apologies," he says to the crone as he bounds past her.

He follows the owl outside.

[ewancummins]

Civic Temple

Titus lays all thee doves and the dagger on the Altar, and kneels before the statue of the Speaker of Storms, waiting for a sign.

He doesn't wait for long. From the vaulted ceiling above, a large owl swoops down and snatches two of the doves with its talons, and flies back towards the entrance.

Titus stanches up the remaining dove and chases after the owl as it flies out the temple door.

"My apologies," he says to the crone as he bounds past her.

He follows the owl outside.

The owl leads Titus on a wild OWL chase through the streets and plazas of POVERO.

Several times he loses sight of it, only to spot it again a short time later.
He finds one of the doves dead, throat pierced by the owl's talons, floating in a canal near the Market District.
The Owl, holding the other dove--which hangs limp-- continues its erratic flight with Titus doing his best to keep up.
But on foot, he's not fast enough. He searches, but no owl...

At last, tired, hot, and thirsty, not having seen the owl for a couple of hours, the priest returns to the Frisky Friar as the sun sinks low in the west.

HOOOOO!

The owl, sans dove, waits for him perched on the inn's signboard. And then it takes flight, circling once above Titus before flying southwest. Now it keeps in sight but out of reach.

Renewing his pursuit, Titus follows the bird across the yard of an ostlery, down a lane of small houses, and toward the outskirts of the city...

After dark, he catches up with the owl at a large hawthorn growing on a hillside below the edge of a small vineyard.

A light flashes in the hawthorn.
Something thuds.

The owl hops deeper into the shrub, vanishing from sight.

[Adam]

Alfonse shouts down the stairs. "The watch is coming, I'll go try to throw them off."

He turns to Damien, "Make yourself scarce..." and then heads out the door towards the guard, waving his hands frantically. "Bandits! Robbers! Murderers! They went that way!" He points in a direction Damien would have conceivably gone given his approach path to the house, but not to the house itself.

[VAN]

"Great...we need to hurry then."

Tom goes first inside with his sword and shield out in case the ruffians have bows and shoot at them.