Frozen Frontier Prequel: Family Planning

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==Recap==
Year: 1496
===Day One===
Grimes (around age 16) is now a first level thief. He does some chimney sweeping as a cover, but most of his time is odd jobs for "The Family". He still lives in the hut in Landslide outside of Wikkthronrarenta, but with his father dead he no longer needs to return home every night.
One day Grimes is walking in Wikkthronrarenta when Mickey, a "Cousin" from the "The Family" signals Grimes over. Grimes goes over to talk with Cousin Mickey, who passes on a message for some 2nd Story work, and tells him some "Aunts" and "Uncles" will give him the details. Grimes follows Mickey to an underground tavern in the south-east side of town.
An Aunty tells Grimes he needs to make sure a team can get into an upper floor of a keep in Fen Den. Mickey then takes Grimes to the team at the back of a restaurant. There are 2 men here, a big built man, Jamie, and a small wiry kid, Jamie. 
Grimes and the 2 Jamies leave Wikkthronrarenta and travel north up the road.
They arrive in Fen Den in the evening. The Jamies lead the way into a run down Tavern. It is now that Grimes is told the target is Lord Balshear's Keep in the centre of town. The Jamies need access to the upper bedroom in the tower. 
After a quick meal, Grimes scouts out the keep in the rain. He sees the keep is a series of towers, with the highest appearing 6 stories high. A knight on a horse patrols outside slowly. The security of the tower appears to be lax.
Grimes returns to the run-down tavern and reports in to the 2 Jamies. Grimes suggests a plan to start climbing from the back of a keep near a gully. 
The 2 Jamies hide nearby as Grimes carefully climbs the tower in the rain. He get to the roof of the tallest tower and spots a weather-vane and a flagpole. Grimes ties one end of the rope to the flagpole and then lowers the rope and give the bird call signal. The 2 Jamies carefully move to the bottom rope. Grimes climbs down and puts a climbing harness on large Jamie and the two climb up.
Back at the top, Grimes picks the window latch and quietly rolls into the room. Large Jamie follows in more loudly, waking the little girl in her bed. Large Jamie covers her mouth before she can shout. Grimes helps Large Jamie put the child into the bag. Grimes gags her.
Grimes lowers Large Jamie & the girl down to the ground before free climbing down by himself. Party way down Grimes falls off the tower and hits the ground hard and blacks out. 
===Day Two===
In the afternoon in Fen Den, Grimes wakes up alone, hidden inside some bushes. His leg is fractured but had been treated. Grimes looks around and sees he has been dragged away from the tower and hidden.
Grimes painfully brings himself to his feet and staggers towards the exit to Fed Den. The rain has stopped and it is sunny. He sees around him a lot of guards and mounted guards moving around. One knight rides over and Grimes asks for Alms, looking dirty and bedraggled, and acts like an injured farmer turned beggar. The knight gives Grimes some charity then moves on.
Grimes makes his way out of town to the river and ravenously drinks. He starts on the long painful walk towards Wikkthronrarenta. He manages to hitch a ride on a cart heading to the capital along the way.
It is late in the day Grimes get to Wikkthronrarenta. He heads back to the underground tavern, but he isn't allowed in as some business inside is being conducted. Grimes waits next door at a restaurant. After a meal Grimes comes back as the 2 Jamies are leading the underground tavern. Small Jamie is glad that Grimes made it.
Grimes heads into the underground tavern. Inside are the Aunts and Uncles. Also the terrified little girl who is now wearing a leg shackle and a long chain. The aunty from yesterday gives Grimes a bag of 50 gold coins, but disapproves of Grimes's attitude about the situation. It is revealed the girl is Lord Balshear's child and taking her was a message to her father to "play ball" with the family.
The Aunty summons Mickey and has Mickey take Grimes to The Fighting Pits where there are some Clerics of Voraci. Afterwards Grimes and Mickey head off for drinks. Mickey head off after an hour back to work. Grimes drinks hard into the night, trying not to feel.
===Grimes's Nightmare===
Grimes has a nightmare about being at the top of the tower in the rain, going into the little girl's room and being called a murderer. Grimes claims to be innocent. A veiled Voraci then says "the eyes that watched are as guilty as the knife that strikes. No deed goes unrewarded. A life for a life, a death for a death.". Grimes is then hurled out of the tower.
===Day Three===
Grimes wakes up to the sounds of a carnival. Grimes pushes he way though the festival to find a temple of Martha. Grimes arrives at the temple and walks up to a cleric and admits he has sinned. Grimes talks about the overwhelming guilt he is feeling. Grimes gets overwhelmed and leaves the temple.
Grimes goes into the carnival and gets some food and runs into Mickey. Mickey is looking for Frankie. Grimes hasn't seen him. Mickey needs a lock opened and asks Grimes to help instead. They leave the festival and head into some alleyways and arrive at a small small one-room Family Safehouse. Mickey pulls out a lockbox.
Grimes gets to work and after almost an hour he pops the lock on the small metal box. Inside the lockbox is a waterskin. Grime then finds the false bottom to the box. In the false bottom are 24 little clear gemstones. Grimes hands it over to Mickey. Mickey talks about a lot of money moving around in the Pernisis area, and a lot of the money being moved around is in gems. The lockbox came from a merchant from Pernisis. Grimes is given 2 of the gems.
Mickey then says there is a job coming up, not a climbing job but a lock-picking job and asks Grimes to meet him in a few hours. During the time Grimes tries to identify the liquid in the waterskin but doesn't get any results.
At the meeting Mickey talks about a lockbox in a warehouse outside town with the weekly wages of the workers. The warehouse is run by a East-Drekkis trading company from Pernisis that isn't paying protection money. The workers will be away tomorrow to attend the festival, and that is when the plan to strike is.
That night Grimes finds a Family Contractor called Ash and asks about the waterskin. Ash says it is a magic potion of Gaseous Form. 
===Day Four===
Grimes meets up with Mickey and a third person, Marianne. Mickey shows them the plans of the warehouse and the secret room they are going to break into.
The three travel out of the city and get to the warehouse. There doesn't appear to be any guards outside. Grimes looks in a back window and sees a guard inside. The group head inside and knock out the guard and tie him up. They head into the basement and Grimes starts working on the safe.
After 90 minutes Grimes realises the lock is too hard for him to work. He uses his potion and slips inside the safe. He confirms the wealth is inside, he also learns the lock he had been working on had been a false lock. The real lock is far beyond Grimes's abilities.
The group head back to the guard who has now woken up. The guard reveals the boss is the one with the key around his neck and he is in the city at the festival.
Mickey rushes off back to the city to get more help.
After some time 2 more guards arrive. Grimes assassinates one from behind. The Marianne distracts the 2nd guard, and Grimes throws knifes into his back, murdering that guard as well. Marianne murders the tied up guard since he is a witness. Grimes hides the bodies in a crate and cleans up the mess.
Some more time later Marianne spots Mickey out of a window, he is shackles being escorted by guards and a haughty stranger. Grimes and Marianne escape the warehouse and flee. They sneak back into the city and report in to Uncle Joe. Uncle Joe explains that Mickey was looking for a lockman, but since none were available he went after the owner's key instead. Uncle Joe asks Grimes to collect Ash. 
Ash is hired to take out Mickey before the Clerics can use their spells to make him reveal truths about the Family. Uncle Joe then tells Grimes that they have some work coming up in Suulwikk in a few months time, and asks Grimes to head there early to get the lay of the land...
Category:Frozen Frontier Episodes