Act 2: Upheaval II - Revelations and search

Mihai binds him with a pair of woven shackles, then sits him up. He remains silent for a moment, before speaking - "For weeks now, your organization has been snatching people off the streets at night. I want to know why, and i want to know where they are."

Steve says quietly back to Amber, "Time to leave of course. We'll talk more away from here."

Steve then addresses the gangsters, "So long fellas. Let's never do this again. But seriously, don't come and find us. We were kind not to kill any of you but that kindness wasn't weakness. Remember that." He tips his hat to them and leaves out the front door with the others, shuts the door behind them, and then leads them across the street and behind the warehouses to the south so they are out of sight.

"Okay, we can talk here. Any ideas what to do next?"

"We can't do it without Mihai," Amber says, "...Why the hell did Florolf do that?"

"You haven't seen Florolf since then?" Fluffle asks.

"No," she replies.
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"Wait, that's all?" the office worker inquires. "You're at the wrong place then; they're at the Goodman estate, right in the middle of the Neighborhood. The guy paid us some good money to bring him people nobody would miss. He also paid us not to ask questions, just so you know, so no need to beat me up or pull my nails, okay? Be cool."

Mihai stares at him - "What guy?"

"Goodman! From the Goodman estate! The rich guy who never goes out his house."
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"He should be coming soon then. What if there are too many of them?"

"Then we should run," Sunny comments.

"How long has this been going on before people caught on?"

"Like a week or something?"

"Yes, if there's too many, we'll run back to the ship and hope Mihai and Florolf meet us there. In the mean time, let's keep an eye on the warehouse."

"How do we get in? Who do you walk up to and what do you tell them?" - he narrows his gaze - "Try not to lie to me."

Deception 25

"And where would that be?"

The thug-in-chief turns his head to the right and looks down at his lower body. "There's a key in my back pocket," he says. "The one on my ass, yes. You take it and get in through the basement. Simple as that. There are a few people with weird fucking tattoos on their faces, but they're harmless. They're not even armed."

OOC:

Konrad shrugs. "Space Hamster? I'll have an opportunity to hire the sellswords we saw there last time, or a few other people if they're not regulars. Our man won't be expecting our numbers to swell. I was planning to 'talent scout' at the tournament, but desperate times. Could still do that."

"Space Hamster works for me then. How about you guys?"

Mihai stands him up and takes the key from his back pocket. He takes the opportunity to pat him down while he's at it, since he hasn't checked for weapons yet.

Amber and Sunny answer at the same time. "Whatever works."

Fluffle nods and says, "Sounds like a good plan." He gives a thumbs up at his companions.
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Mihai searches the man's pockets and finds two daggers, five darts, a purse of money, three small bags of Rev, a bunch of normal keys and the aforementioned key, which is a lot fancier than the others.

"So we good?" the man with sunken eyes asks.

"The ink on their faces. What does it look like?"

"What?" The question perplexes Rafal, but he shrugs and responds with a detaches tone, "I don't know. Like someone stamped a bunch of vines on their faces."

Mihai takes the nice man back to the warehouse - "Florolf, you mind?"

Amber sends Sunny away and the Aspect dematerializes out of existence with her longswords. The party then takes position near the Noze's warehouse and waits for the reinforcements – and more importantly, for Mikolaj. A minute passes and something unexpected happens; one of the thugs they previously captured exits the warehouse and sprints east, towards the Market district.
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Mihai returns to the warehouse just in time to see a humanoid shadow exit the building and sprint east, away from him. Rafal shudders at this sight before he starts to study Mihai's expression. He then asks, "By Deremonda's sweet titties, you've seen that sort of thing before, right?"

Just as the gangster says this, Mihai catches something at the corner of his eyes; it's Konrad's silhouette, which he is very familiar with by now. He's hiding behind one of the warehouse near the piers.

Getting used to the trend of people fleeing east by now, Mihai crosses the street (not letting go of the nice man) over to the party's location, then urges - "Florolf, do your thing. Hurry."

Florolf follows Mihai and looks up to him, curious about his previous words. Meanwhile, Mihai sees two more smoky silhouettes come out of the Noze warehouse; they briefly examine their surroundings before going back inside.
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The rest of the party sees two of the men they previously tied up come out of the warehouse and search the street for any traces of their captors. They quickly go back inside the building.

"...They've already managed to free themselves?" Fluffle whispers, surprised.