Highport,
4.30am
Hobgoblins hovel.
Setting things into motion,
Fawkes and
Goran sneak ahead to check out the cobbled alleyway. This is a narrow meandering path, wide enough for a horse and cart but uneven in places with many loose stones and a filth filled gutter. Either side are old stone terraced houses, some three or four storeys high. Old shops have large frontages and some cottage industry must take place here with signs for 'cobblers', 'dentist & barber', locksmithing, carpentry. A pillar on a corner building has an alcove with a standpipe and 'mostly fresh' words chiselled in the stones around in several Highport tongues. A boarded up door in an elaborate archway has several ears nailed to it. A bloody message is scrawled "trespasses will not be forgiven". The only light in the alley, apart from the filtered moonlight are occasional sparkles of flickering candles in upper rooms. A dog barking in a yard nearby the only initial sound above your footfall.
The little Halfling, smeared in his urban camouflage hugs one side wall and skips silently over the cobbles, flitting from doorway to doorway and adjoining narrow defiles. He makes it to the hovel of the gaming Hobgoblins. It is little more than a draughty shell of a partially ruined storehouse, long empty of goods.
Pallas, perched on the stone sill of a broken window gives his bird's-eye view back to
Edel. He watches as
Goran presses his ear to the closed door on the exterior street side, listening in to decipher the Hobgoblins activity in the room behind. As noted before, the figures dice and wager, some standing and some sitting at a long table that holds a wood frame for the casting of knucklebone dice. The knucklebones are carved into the image of pigs and when rolled together, the dice interlock in various poses. Tusk to tusk butting each other, belly up, head over trotter or one mounting the other as if mating. At this the Hobgoblins cry
"Making bacon!" and winning wages are settled. An odd game that might seem fun after a few ales. These have been drinking too which only exacerbates the tension between them as the winning prize seems to be the terrified slave woman.
Goran tries to listen beyond the raucous entertainment, straining his ears to discern a rear door opening and footsteps receding into the courtyard around the back. You can scramble over some rubble and peer through a cracked gate into the hovel yard, seeing one of the Hobgoblins seated on a bench, arse exposed over an open sewer taking a dump of yesterday's lunch.
Fawkes is a few yards behind as the Halfling can take advantage using his racial traits to sneak ahead if alone and not in metal armour. The Half-orc takes the other side of the alley to stalk but,
using your failed MS roll, literally walks upon the outstretched legs of a vagabond who shelters under an arched overhang. Stepping on the unseen figure rouses him and he gives a cry of alarm and fear as he is suddenly awoken by a crossbow totting assassin, or so he may justifiably think.
Entering the alley some yards behind,
Olleg & Brick gesture a halt as they try to learn what is happening ahead. The fighters melt into shadows, hands upon hilts in case the dangers of discover become real.
Edel withdraws from his bond with
Pallas, coming back to himself,
(I think I am going to go with the idea that when you use the Familiar to look through its eyes and sensory organs, you lose consciousness of those abilities in your own body. So you only have one visual perception at any one time, Edel's or the owl's. . The small avian is perfectly camouflaged against the grey stone and watches proceedings in the alley.
Durrant, Galadria & Vennar bring up the rear, keeping out of view as hand gestures are given by those further up. They look behind, curious as to
Mortar Whizzbang who, on a whim to take advantage of his invisibility, has followed the path to the outer watchtower and city gates. They cannot see him of course and mark the trail by chalking a wall, so he may follow should he get too far separated.
Perhaps an easier and less risky route may be found by circumnavigation of the city's ramparts? The watchtower with beacon that suffices as a lighthouse is a tall stone building, three storeys high. It may seem like common rooms or barracks are on the ground floor then private rooms and beacon on the uppermost. Based in the watchtower are more than two dozen militia, mostly Orcs and half-orcs. The have a customised patchwork armoured uniform, some kind of quilted gambeson with sashes and stripes which must denote some differing between the conscripts and those veteran guards. Just by the watchtower is a double portcullis, The two grid bar designed gates are both lowered down, firmly closed, pointy teeth fixed buried into the hard ground. Ropes tied to pulleys in the gate lift the heavy timbers up, presumably at dawn. You can creep right up to the gates undetected, looking through to the wilderness outside the city. The coast of Woolly Bay stretches away on one side, green fields mark the other. However they are not verdant unspoiled pastures but pockmarked with many corrugated lean to's, shanty cabins and mud built dwellings. More dwellings for the city labourers not graced with residence within. The idea to sneak out and around might have proved worthwhile but from what your limited view provides, there are less ruins to shelter within and more risk of exposure.
This is assuming we have some kind of map or at least an idea where the temple is inside the city.
yes, you have basic directions towards the Temple with an approximate location. Using that same pic you edited, the square building with the fire towards the south wall is the one I am using as the ruined Temple.
Actions Mortar, continue your exploration.
Goran, decide on your actions.
Fawkes, deal with the awakened vagabond.
others, you can all act, choosing to still hang back in the alley or advance. You can each roll me a [1d20] which I will check against any intelligence insights.
Highport: random encounter vs 1 [1d6]=6
