Journal 4: London: Finding Keef--Scotland
...only to run into a pack of guards blocking our escape route. The
leader was really tough-looking; getting into a fight with him and his
minions would likely waste enough time that the house guards would
descend upon us and we'd be in trouble. Fortunately, Billy Ray was a
quick thinker, and cast a spell of darkness around us and the guards,
and we ran past/through the guards. Billy Ray had some trouble, but
got out. Joe didn't get out; we waited a bit for him, but then it
seemed like the guards were likely to shake their confusion, and so we
had to leave him behind. I felt kinda bad about that, but we _had_ to
get Keef to safety.
A cloaked figure appeared, and signalled us to follow; we didn't have
much choice at that point, so we did. The figure led us back to the
hideout, and we discovered that it was Lively Glimmer. She left before
I could ask her how she came to be down there to rescue us.
We removed Keef's chains, and BRB tried some healing on him. There
wasn't much effect; poor Keef's been abused for so long that I think
that only rest and safety will cure him. I don't know what they gave
him, but he didn't recognise any of us in his semi-conscious state.
Erose and BRB wanted to assassinate the Lord Chancellor; (somebody?)
and I managed to convince them that this was really not a good idea. I
like them both, but they have an unfortunate tendency to think that
killing people will solve any problem, and forget that doing so is
likely to cause more. I don't think they remember that they are
supposed to be acting as agents of their Lord Lara, and their actions
reflect upon her, as well as themselves.
Anyway, Erose and BRB wanted to find Dave, so they went to one of the
pubs where he might be. They found a big mess going on; the government
was cracking down on the illegal people, and conducting raids on the
illegal clubs. Erose and BRB managed to not get arrested, although
they didn't find Dave, either.
The next morning, we had news: somebody had burned down the Lord
Chamberlain's house. A prisoner, two guards, and some servants had
been killed. Lord Archie was out of town, had left last night, more's
the pity. They were blaming "foreign spies" and the White Duke.
Plans for Nigel
We got a message that Nigel, the captain of the Chamberlain's guard
(the big bloke we ran into the previous night), wanted to talk to
us. He agreed to meet us at a place of our choosing, one of the
resistance's safe houses, so we decided to give it a try, thinking we
might get some info out of him. We met him, he said that he believed
that we were not responsible for the fire, since he saw us runing
away, long before the fire. He also assured us that Joe Strummer was
safe in the drunk tank. What he wanted to know was if we'd seen
anything suspicious while we were "lost" in the Lord Chamberlain's
basement. We told him that we'd never been in the lord Chamberlain's
basement, and that we hadn't seen anything odd when we were not
there. He explained that the LC had a prisoner locked up in the
basement, and that somebody had knifed the prisoner in the back during
the night, and burned the house down to try to cover it up. We told
him we hadn't seen any prisoners when we were not in the LC's
basement. Erose and BRB decided to tell him in a roundabout way that
we'd freed the prisoner, but old Nigel wasn't the brightest candle on
the Odin-tree; I don't think he got it. That's probably for the best;
if the powers that be think Keef is dead, they may be less likely to
try to kidnap him again.
BRB wanted to talk-to-the-dead to the dead prisoner, but he didn't
have the spell memorized. (Nigel had a _real_ magic baggie, one of
those way-bigger-on-the-inside-than-on-the-outside deals, and he had
the body in there!) Here's where things went from worse to even
worse. Lively Glimmer came in, and started flirting with Nigel, who
rebufed her. I was beginning to feel a bit nervous; it seemed way too
coincidental for her to show up mysteriously, AGAIN.
At one point, she ended up completely behind Nigel, and she stabbed
him in the back. Literally. He keeled over, dead, and she yelled for
guards. Why is it that every nice woman I meet turns out to be a
treacherous bitch? BRB and Erose, of course, decided that violence
would solve everything, and tried to kill her. I tried to stop
them. the guards were coming, so we all ran away.
Back at the hideout, Dave told us that he'd found out that Archie had
taken the Amp north to Scotland to sell it. Since London was way too
hot for us, we decided to go up there and try to get it back. We
managed to get out of town; I got rid of my filthy clothes and took a
bath at the first stream we came across. Dave took us to one of his
castles in Scotland. It was great to have civilized living
accomodations, after several months of sleeping on the ground, in
boats, or in sewers. Even Hal took advantage of the chance to have a
hot bath.
We found out where Archie was going to sell the Amp, and went up
there. It was the lands of some human lord, on the coast. When we got
there, we found a surprise: at the base of the cliffs, they'd built an
artificial harbor, and were building warships! This is bad news.