The heroes of Sword and Sorcery Inc. arrive at The Stumbly Giant inn and rent out a room for about a week, but similar to the way they got directions to the inn, the week ended up being costly enough to almost empty out their entire budget. Jin Shi likely could have spotted the bad deal, but he was busily stabling the horses at the time. Once the Vanara arrived back and heard about the deal that was made the depressed group sulked at a table over the blow to their wallets.
They order water and stale bread to minimize cost, but the only one who seems able to bite into the rock-like food and stomach the brownish water looked to be Sparky thanks to his goblin resistance to becoming sickened or nauseated.
Zilo swirls the dirt water about and says, "How by Dema can those here work with swill like this?"
Jin remarks with a swig of his infinite flask, "Prolly de ale, might make eh so deh people avoid de contamehnants." Zilo raises a brow to that before asking, "How's that work?"
Alaroc drinks his own flask dry and answers, "Ale needs to be brewed, meaning its gotta be boiled. Alchemists have been telling folks for a while that boiling water kills the stuff that kills you." Zilo nods as he tries to pry apart his bread, only breaking it in half after considerable effort.
"You know what, I'll skip eating, for now, maybe I can earn us back a bit of coin on the streets, and get us something better for dinner." Jin and Alaroc nod as Sparky pats his slightly plump belly. Alaroc examines the Contract and says, "Lookin like de client'll be in de nort plaza tommora at noon, so we may wanna get a lay a'da land a'fore den."
They all leave the inn and begin walking around the town. with an idea striking him Sparky excitedly speaks, "Might see more if go all over!" Jin grabs the back of the goblin before he runs off. The monk holds the little guy in the air as his legs run in place. Jin speaks, "Na-uh bud. Zilo alreade spent all we had alone. We be stickin togetha."
The goblin drooped and they all made their way to the town's east plaza. Zilo spotted a grimy water fountain that looked ideal to play for some money. Zilo snaps out his bow and violin as they both began to float for Zilo's ghost performance.
He unsheathes his song blade to his right hand as he coordinates his violin with the right, and he balances along the fountain with his dancing shoes. He twirls about rapidly dancing and vibrating his blade on the stone fountain. Being the first time he tried to incorporate all three his performance styles he needed to get a feel for the rhythm.
All in all his performance is a strong one, easily able to earn a few dozen golds from the folks around him normally. However, he wasn't in Deneval, and the folks of Shadeville proved to be dedicated to hoarding any gold they managed to scrounge away. He made, maybe 9 copper pieces, barely able to get one round of Ale for the group.
Zilo frowns and walks back to his friends and says, "Looks like this is gonna be tougher than we thought." Alaroc and Sparky slumped, but Alaroc rubbed his chin and says, "No shame Zilo, let me give it ago, I was in de circus fur a few years afta all. Head back to de inn and get some grub with dose coins. You'll need de energy."
Zilo shrugged and as he began walking down the path, Jin motioned his head over to a weapon shop and said, "Head round dat store dere, de alley will get ya dere in half de time." Zilo nods with a faint smile and begins down the alley.
Within only a few moments Zilo becomes unbelievably lost and he sighs deeply as he begins to look around at the long alley 10-foot wide alley behind some buildings with some 20 foot high roofs and one other rout along the side of the alley. He suddenly is shouted at by a deep gravely voice, "EH! Friend! ya lookin pretty lost there!"
Zilo turns to see a Thug with twin bandannas across his face and head. The man had on some basic leather armor with a few patches of it sewn together to repair some wear and tear, along with a buckler, a small leather bag gripped in his left arm that sported a buckler, and a rather sharp knife in his right hand.
To anyone this man would be picked out as bad news, but to Zilo...
"Yes I am rather lost, I'm looking for The Stumbly Giant can you point me toward it?" The man halts a moment, not expecting Zilo to be that clueless before shaking his head and re-assuming his threatening voice.
"Me and me mates would be glad to show you." The man reaches below his bandanna and lets out a loud whistle. In but a moment another 2 men each walk out of both ends of the long alley section. the one who had whistled tilted his head around to get a better view of the off shooting alley before walking from the alley came Sparky, Alaroc, and Jin, dragging two more unconscious thugs.
"Jin! bad news, I got lost." Said Zilo.
"Was countin on it." Responded Jin, looking to the thug's leader. The man gritted his teeth and said, "Who're you sewer rats!? What'd you do to me men!?"
Sparky raises his fist and knocks himself hard on the head and spins clumsily on one foot before shaking away his motions and smiles wide. Alaroc looks over to Zilo and says, "Jin says these ruffians were eyeing you and your new blade up while you were playing. He guessed they planned to abscond with it once you were alone."
Zilo looked to Jin and askes, "So this isn't a shortcut then?" Jin shrugs before looking about to the rest of the thugs and says, "Now den I need tah relieve some aggression, I'll handle dese folks."
Sparky grabs at Jin's tail and pulls past him saying, "No, Me wanna. Me bored." and soon after Alaroc speaks, "No way, I haven't had a good fight in ages, my dragonslayer is getting rusty!" Zilo manifests his bow and says, "Hey, they wanted to steal from me, so I should be the one!"
The thieves stare with slack jaws as the 4 of the heroes play a quirk round of rock, knife, parchment, with Alaroc coming out as the victor. Sparky, Zilo, and Jin sigh and wait in the offside alley as Alaroc motions for all 5 of the thugs to come at him.
As they begin to charge Alaroc quickly with ease takes out his new Cavalryman's Bow and nails one of the thieves in his kneecap, making him fall to the ground. The leader reaches the warrior first and tries to stab him, only for Alaroc to feint to the side and flick his empty bow around the man's neck. with the other end of the bow clipping over an unlit torch stand. Alaroc leaves his makeshift obstacle with a hop back.
The leader chokes himself out a bit and falls to the ground as the thief behind him moves in with a swipe of his sap. the small weapon cracks Alaroc's helm, making it rattle about, but the warrior brushes it off and rears back his right gauntlet.
Alaroc's fist smashes square into the man's face, breaking his nose, lifting him off his feet and sending him to the ground, unconscious. Alaroc turns as the last two thieves approach, and he takes out both his dragonslayer sword and his energy blade.
He holds out his dragonslayer to keep them from charging. The leader begins to stand from the shock of the bow on his neck before Alaroc swiftly kicks him in the gut back to the ground and leaps off the kick to strike the left thief with the flat of his dragonslayer and smash his head into a wall.
Alaroc spins swiftly at the last thief with a slice of his energy blade. The thief tries to block with his dagger, but the blade's energy warps past the block and lands touching the thief's neck, leaving a small burn mark there. As the fear-stricken thief winces and closes his eyes Alaroc lurches forward and headbutts him to the ground.
Alaroc turns again to see the leader free of the bow's grip and moving in. Alaroc barely reacts swiping up his dragonslayer and knocking the dagger from his grip. The thief looks up to see his dagger spinning before Alaroc twists his wrist and bashes the side of the man's head with his energy blade's pommel, knocking the man to the ground.
Alaroc looks to the 5 beaten men before shrugging and saying, " I suppose that counts as a warm-up for some. They didn't even leave a mark, guys!" the four heroes begin pursing through their stuff and manage to walk away with some coin purses with a fair amount of gold. Looks like the group won't be scrounging for supplies in town after all.
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