Inside the Mithril Claw, the man behind the bar had pulled a young lad--perhaps all of 9 years old--and was speaking quietly, but a few words could be caught by Meridian's acute hearing.


At the table, as Qrox moved to pull the men back, the shimmering dust seemed to be settling.

"He'll hang for that," said the man in robes, then he sneezed again, and rather ostentatiously pulled a handkerchief and blew his nose, which seemed to resolve the sneezes.

The armored man, waved off Qrox's concern.  "No, no, please," he said.  "I assure you, we're fine.  Please, go find him, save the book."

---

Outside, it was clear that the city was waking from the night's slumber.  A significant number of men and women were traveling on foot, or by horseback, or by carts and wagons, as the trio who had burst from the Mithril Claw caught sight of the thief turning right onto Main Street, back toward the East Gate.  Moments later, the shorter Korin and Neo lost sight of the man.


A woman, her arms filled with baskets of herbs, suddenly fell to the street with a cry.

Neo points to the fallen woman, "That way, Korin!" The kuduk immediately dashes toward the woman, eyes darting about, looking for the book thief.
This message was last edited by the player at 04:53, Thu 08 Apr 2021.

Meridian walks over to the table, joining the conversation and curious why the men themselves were not setting off after this precious book. He paused and replayed the scene in his mind. Did the two men acknowledge the thief in any way prior to the explosion of dust or was he merely pretending to pass by? He wasn't sure, but he did not think they spoke with one another.

"Did you recognize the thief?" Meridian asks, recalling what he remembers aloud, "a chubby man with wispy white hair, dressed in simple brown tunic and trousers"

It didn't even occur to Aendyr that his height challenged compatriots weren't getting the eyeful of events he was.

"Your acroFATics won't save you, book thief!" he shouted as he made a sharp left turn to continue pursuing the white haired man down a smaller side street.

Aendyr gracefully spun widdershins around an abbot to keep from plowing into him and then hurdled his young daughter.  "'scuse me.  Coming through.  Thief to catch."

Wait, did abbots have daughters?  Maybe it was his niece, or an orphan.


"Hey!" he shouted at the chubby man.  "What's in that book?"

To him books always conjured memories of Shenandoah Sam's rootin' tootin' crossbow shootin' adventures.  Before Aendyr's premature militia days, his older brother Taegen brought heaps of crudely illustrated books written entirely in Troll to the village.  The more Aendyr read, the more Taegen brought him.  Where did he get them?  No one knew.  Aendyr loved Shenandoah Sam's short fuse and the torrent of Troll curse words he would spout as he stomped comedically on his hat when things didn't go his way, which was frequently.  Now Aendyr could swear in Troll with the best of them.  Poor Sam would constantly get this limb or that lopped off.  He'd hop around for a while before regrowing the leg or arm.  Strangely, he always regrew his crossbows too.

Come to think of it, His new dwarf buddy reminded him more than a little of Shenandoah Sam with his red hair and short-ish stature.  Of course, he was a good deal less green than Sam.  Aendyr knew it was a real longshot that the thief had swiped a Troll picture book, but there was only one way to find out.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:27, Thu 08 Apr 2021.

Korin looks momentarily at Neo and then charges towards near where he points to, his mind racing. Was the thief now invisible? He had trained for combat with an invisible opponent, using his other senses and intuition to guess where his opponent was and where they might attack from. This, however, was different. The thief was fleeing and fighting was, for them, likely to be a last resort with a good chance of being a futile once sufficient numbers were gathered around to make flight impossible.

He races up by and past a bit of the fallen women, being alert for any signs of any invisible opponent, especially one he might run into.

OOC:
Use Blind-Fighting skill if possible to help locate any invisible opponent.

Inside the Mithril Claw

As the youth that the bartender had been speaking to left, the bartender said, "That was Lorand."

"The Clean?" said the robed man.  With that, he hurried from the establishment, turning to the left as soon as he hit Main Street.

The armored man, with a few more sneezes, quickly followed suit.

---

On the streets of Breidhof

On Main Street, the woman who had been knocked to the ground was frantically trying to return the herbs to her baskets.  All evidence suggested that she was not badly hurt, at least no broken bones or other serious injury.

Despite the best efforts to keep him in sight, the thief seemed to be well-familiar with the streets and alleys of the city, his brown clothing mingling with the brown clothing of a number of others already on the streets.

At that moment, there were a number of shouts a little west ((another left turn from Aendyr's position)).

"That's him!"

"Get the Guard!"

"Thief!"

Following the noise, a knot of about a dozen people had gathered in front of a large building with a signboard depicting a tub which appeared full of steaming water under the Trozanese words "Bath House".

Meridian follows the robed man, maintaining his pace.

Following the two men from the Mithril Claw led down a more direct path to the bath house, where an angry crowd had started to gather.

Qrox follows at a distance, seeing a group of angry men, the Slith tries to remain unnoticed, not sure if the locals are all that friendly towards his race.

Daydreaming of Troll stories had caused him to lose sight of the book thief, but not far away he heard cries and shouts and the word 'thief'.  Aendyr ran that way and arrived in front of the tub building.

"Hey there people," he said to the crowd, not as out-of-breath as you'd expect.  "I'm chasing that thief you're all yelling about.  Which way did he go?"

Meridian continues to follow, not interacting with the men but curious as to their route. Were the following the noises - or did they have an idea which way the thief was heading? That would make this man not a very good thief, but then again, if his identity is so easily known to the bartender, there must be more to the story.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:02, Fri 09 Apr 2021.

Having lost signs of the thief, Korin slows to a walk. When he hears shouts and cries of the thief, he starts jogging that direction. However, he pays attention to his surroundings looking for anything that seems out of place and especially the one who might have stolen the book or whatever it was. He knows with each minute of passing, the odds of catching the thief diminish.

Neo continues to move through the crowds of people, keeping his eyes and ears peeled for anything out of the ordinary, that might signal the thief's whereabouts.

He chuckles quietly, when he hears shouts of 'thief' rising above the general din. "Well, that is convenient!" he mutters as he moves toward the shouts.

He finds himself behind a crowd in front of a bath house. He spots Aendyr in the crowd and Korin approaching it, just ahead.

"Oy! Korin! Wait for me!" The kuduk knows it will be much easier to push through the crowd with a burly dwarf doing the pushing.

"Yeah, that's the guy I saw runnin'," said one of the men in the crowd.  "Had a big book with him."

"Musta stashed it somewheres on th' way," said another voice.

"He don't need to steal.  He's got plenty o' coin," said another voice.  "This isn't like Lorand!"

"Haul him off, I say," said a woman in the crowd.  "We've had two already. This has got to stop."

"He's been at the bath house since six bells.  I know this for a fact, I just finished my bath."

As the crowd continued to grow, four armored men, wearing chainmail with surcoats much like the gate guards except that here the sleeve bore an emblem of a black lotus, pushed their way through the crowd.  One of them pounded on the door.

"Open, in the name of King Leonato," said the guard pounding the door.

Moments later, a small, chubby man with white wispy hair--garbed in dark gray trousers and a lighter gray tunic--stepped out.  The guards shackled him, and then pushed their way back up to Main Street to take the unresisting man to jail, with one of the guards remaining at the door of the bath house.  Although the man who emerged from the bath house physically resembled the thief they had seen at the Mithril Claw, it seemed the time had been far too short for the man to have gotten inside the building of the bath house, stash the tome, and change clothes.

"This establishment is closed," the guard said, "if you have information, please make a report, otherwise get on about your day."

"Perhaps this thief is smarter than I thought," Meridian thinks to himself, watching the crowd, the guards, and the scene unfolding. It did seem unlikely that an obviously identifiable person would commit such an act. Presumably, the thief musty have had good information, and training in disguise spells. Often the best caper is pulled off in broad daylight, in the crowds, leaving few clues.

Upon the guards instructions to move on, Meridian strolled back to his breakfast, going over various details in his head. He looks towards the morning sun, estimating how much time is left before his appearance. He should have time to finish and grab his gear, but there isn't time to fret over the affairs of these strangers.

"Yes, excuse me, guard-sir," Aendyr said raising and waving his hand.  "Where do we go to make a report, and is it OK if we make the report after breakfast?"

Korin watched with unease as the lotus emblemed guardsmen manacled the unresisting man and started leading him off to jail. He had been pursuing the thief moments after he had stolen the book and still the thief had gotten away from him and 2 of his companions but not the guard? How had news of the theft much left the description of the thief spread so quickly, maybe faster than Korin could even run?

When he hears the guard tell the crowd to go about their day, he becomes deeply suspicious. The guard should be asking who in the crowd saw the man with the book. Who saw him run or go into the bath house and what time he went in. It would have had to have been in the last 10 minutes or so. Such testimony was necessary to establish the man's guilt. If the guardsmen cared about justice, they would know that!

As he hear someone complain that the man had been in the bath house since six bells, he casually makes his way over there. "Do you know the man? You sure he didn't trick you?" Korin asks them. "Could he have snuck away without you knowing and then returned without you realizing? A good thief might do that to have an alibi. Is that possible?" Korin asks.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:34, Fri 09 Apr 2021.

Qrox is puzzled, are these strange goings on just normal for a large city?  The man arrested seems unlikely to be the thief, but is it any business of a newcomer to interfere, would anyone take the word of a Slith here.  Maybe, a priest, perhaps.

Quietly, finding the voice who said something about this happening before, Qrox asks gently if other objects have been stolen recently.  What they were and if, as a newcomer, this is normal, is this a safe town to visit?  Were the other thieves caught as easily as this one?

After that and listening to the talk of the crowd for a bit, Qrox too returns to his meal.

"It was my book," said the robed man from the Mithril Claw.  "I'll go make my report."

The armored man headed up the street with the robed man, following along the same path that the guards were leading Lorand.

"Come up to the guard house at the city jail," the guard replied to Aendyr.  "Better to make the report now, while all the details are fresh in your mind."

"Of course I know Lorand," replied one of the bystanders, who had spoken of Lorand being at the bath house.  "I come here every week for my bath, and let me tell you, Lorand isn't hurting for money, do something like this.  I just don't think he has it in him, doing things like that."

"There were two others," came the reply to Qrox.  "Didn't make any sense, George and Roger were always good, honest, hard-working sorts, and it doesn't make sense they'd be taking off with valuable magic items.  But everyone around saw them, no mistaking it.  But you see, the guard here, they come quick and don't have any tolerance for folk who'd break the king's peace."


Those returning back to the Mithril Claw, saw that more of the Black Lotus guards had arrived here, with two standing outside at the entrance, barring entry.

"Official investigation," one said, "no one's going in before we've got this finished up."

Once back to the tavern, Meridian is visibly annoyed that he is not permitted back inside, but he does not make a fuss. He steps back and waits for a minute. Then, after some reflection, he asks politely, "Sir, I appreciate you have a job to do. So do I. I have an appointment across town at nine bells, and I would like to at least retrieve my belongings from my room, as I may not be able to return afterwards. Would you permit the staff to fetch it if I wait outside? You're welcome to inspect it."

He smiles and does his best to appear professional and reasonable. "You can even finish my breakfast, for which I have not yet paid. Whatever is going on here, it's none of my affair."

Internally, he chastises himself. He should have anticipated this and retrieved his gear before leaving after the others.
This message was last edited by the player at 17:29, Sat 10 Apr 2021.

"He'll have to plead his case before the magistrate," Korin says with a shake of his head. He starts to head back to the tavern when suddenly he freezes. "It can't be...," he says under his breath.

He immediately sets off to where the woman with the herbs had fallen down. Once there he will ask those nearby if they saw the known of the woman and where he might find her.

"Damned dwarf," Neo mutters to himself, as he watches Korin disappear into the crowd, without the slightest acknowledgement.

As he mills about with the rest of the crowd in front of the bath house, he hears various bits of chatter and gossip.

~Hmmmm. Bathmaster Lorand has no need for coin...he was in the bath house all morning...not enough time to get changed...~

"The woman with the basket!" Neo shouts out loud, drawing a few stares.

Neo immediately begins retracing his path, hoping to locate the woman that was knocked over.

The guard was right.  Aendyr should go make his report now.  Sure, his breakfast was delicious, but there were always other breakfasts.  There might be one tomorrow.  For that matter you could sometimes eat breakfast for lunch!  Aendyr joined the armored man and the robed man as they followed the guard to the city jail.

"Hey chums," he said to the pair from the silver claw place.  "My name is Aendyr.  Sorry I didn't catch the guy who stole your book.  We was awful quick on his feet.  I lost him in the crowds not too far from the bathhouse.  He just disappeared.  I think he might've been using illusions."

"Say, who are you guys, and what was in that book?  Was it an important book, or was this just a frame-up to get Lorand tossed in jail?  I sure hope I have time to finish my breakfast after this is done.  I've got some sort of appointment at nine bells.  I think."

Main Street

Retracing the way back to the place where the woman had been knocked down, Korin and Neo found themselves outside a pottery shop.  The woman herself was no longer present, and none of the people present seemed to be the same ones who had been about the place a few moments ago.

As the two looked around for evidence of the woman, they saw a copper-haired elf in simple green clothing walking in their direction.  The elf looked back toward the Mithril Claw, which was near enough to the current location as to be in view.  He seemed, however, to be walking more or less toward Neo and Korin.

---

Near the Mithril Claw

One of the guards present said, "You were present when the theft happened?  You need to go to the guardhouse at the city jail and make a report.  Don't worry, we should be done with our investigation before eight bells, there'll be plenty of time for you to get your things."

---

En route from Bath House

"It's good to meet you, Aendyr," said the robed man.  "Name is Khandus, and I was meeting with Keyon here.  Always stay at the Mithril Claw when I come to Briedhof, and seemed to make sense to handle the business at breakfast."

"That was a mistake," said Keyon, the armored man, "appears that our business was uncovered before we finished.  The tome was going to be a donation for the temple of Peren."

"Oy! Korin!" Neo hails the dwarf as they both converge where the basket laden woman was knocked down.

"You had the same thought as I? The woman with baskets was involved with this theft?

We should..." The kuduk stops speaking mid-sentence, noticing the elf walked toward them. "Do you know him?" he asks the dwarf, gesturing with his head.