2022/12/14

Last time in the Iron Kingdoms, prisons were broken.

The party decided that the best course of action to find the crew of The Steady Wind was to investigate the naval garrison within Carre Dova. While they had an invitation to meet with the mercenary liaison for the base, that wouldn't allow them to look around as they pleased. So to do that the plan was for Shakes to break away from the party once on the base and hopefully find the crew so that a rescue could be mounted. Despite Shakes being more sneaky than the rest of the party, they were still worried about what could happen. So as a contingency the party worked on getting a potion of invisibility for the infiltration. The issue with getting such a potion was that it was a class II restricted potion, and there were a number of hoops that one needed to jump through to obtain one while not a member of a government. The party decided that the best way was to reach out to the Order of the Golden Crucible and see if they were willing to take a bribe to brew one on the down low. Hector was nominated to play the role of a creepy voyeur seeking the potion. When Hector arrived at the Order's guild house he was greeted by a dispassionate front desk attendant who inquired about his business with the Order. When Hector replied that he was looking for a potion of invisibility without the accompanying paperwork, the man gave him a critical look and then told Hector to wait there. An uncomfortably long amount of time passed in the entrance to the guild house, before the front desk attendant returned with another alchemist. The other alchemist said that he would be willing to brew such a potion for Hector though the need for discretion would cost him. The two parties eventually settled on a price of 2100 gold for the potion, and Hector was told to return to the guild house in a couple of hours. After Hector obtained the potion, the party was ready to move on to the next part of the plan.

The party then went to the naval garrison as their fake mercenary company Bad Company. Once they reached the gate they were informed that they were expected and that they were to follow a sailor to the administrative building so that they could negotiate with the mercenary liaison. On the way to the administrative building, the party's jacks were dropped off at the jack stables, while the show of competence was noted, the jacks wouldn't be needed within the meeting. At this point Shakes was able to break away from the party and blend in as best as he could among the sailors. Finally once the rest of the party reached the administrative building, Abe was told that his armor wasn't going to fit in the building as well as there was no need to make the custodial staff's lives harder with the armor scuffing up the floors. After Abe leisurely doffed his armor the party was let in to meet with the mercenary liaison.

While the party was selling their cover as mercenaries, Shakes was looking for anything that could be set as a prison or was related to A-5. His first thought was that the navy would be keeping the crew away from anything else important, so he checked the outskirts of the base. Though he found little else beyond some supply warehouses and munitions storage. His next thought was that the local brig for the base could be used for the prisoners, so he made his way back towards the heart of the base to look for the brig. Once he found it, Shakes decided that now was a good time to use the potion of invisibility. Using his temporary transparency, he was able to get into the brig, which was mostly empty at this time of day. While inside, he didn't find the crew of The Steady Wind, though heard the guards complaining between each other about mandatory overtime guarding a bunch of merchants. From what Shakes heard, the merchants were being held in an empty barracks. With the odds that there were two separate merchant crews being held prisoner here being rather low, Shakes made his way towards the barracks with great haste as his remaining invisibility dwindled down. Once there, Shakes saw that the barracks were denoted with block letters and then building numbers, of which A-5 was being guarded by a couple of military police. Shakes made contact with the crew, though before he was able to get away, he was noticed by one of the guards who raised the alarm. Shakes then made a break for the nearest exit post haste.

Meanwhile, the party's meeting had gone surprisingly well. Bad Company had been offered a contract for Ord, defending an artillery position that would be deployed to Five Fingers in the coming weeks and was in the process of leaving the base when they heard the alarm and commotion from Shake's escape. When Shakes saw the party about to also leave the base he fired the signal flare to begin the Five Fingers attack on Carre Dova. The party then had to fight those sailors that were pursuing Shakes before they could rescue the crew of The Steady Wind. The battle with the Ordic sailors was rather brutal, with the soldiers being rather well disciplined, inflicting some notable wounds to the party despite their eventual defeat. With that the party made their way back to the crew and steeled themselves for their mad dash to The Steady Wind.