Sneak & Destroy

## **Synopsis**

In Chapter 67: Sneak & Destroy, the audience at Leopold's Garrison exploded into a mix of cheers and howls as Safira raised her hands in celebration of her victory.  Hoping to sneak in a few parting words to "The Chimera" (who he knew to be Booraj il-Kravo), Graven leapt into the ring – but his pleas went unanswered as Booraj refused any acknowledgement on his way back to his cell.

Our Gentle Void escort, Roa, was still nowhere to be found – so with the fighting coming to a close we had no choice but to leave without our winnings.  He finally emerged when we were crossing the courtyard back to the split-gate, but he was furious that he felt out of the loop on our true intentions for being there.

After trying to tempt us with coin and then threatening to revoke some of the privileges that Booraj had earned from his victories, it took Safira talking Graven down before we were able to turn and walk away for good – embracing the painful reality that the best thing we could do was to simply go north armed with our new lead.

Back at the lodgings, we hoped that no new wrinkles would be thrown into our evening plans, but we were not so lucky.  A Halfling man by the name of Pibraf Lazruud Vodzothangi was there to speak with Beezaura – who was unfortunately dealing with a more imminent problem hours south of the Garrison.

Hiding out in various rooms at the Mycrawl den, we managed to avoid detection as the unidentified arrivals swept the home – but when they spotted our horses tied up outside, we were forced to make a tough decision about how to proceed.  It didn't take long to realize that these men were here to erase evidence, not to gather information – as they fired upon Erland almost immediately when he tried to approach them.

Thus began a brutal fight complicated by the house having been set ablaze and the fact that Leto wouldn't leave his husband's side even in the face of mortal danger.  Erland survived an early volley of blows to come back and knock their leader unconscious, but these fanatics wouldn't be captured alive and they even resorted to shooting their own men to be sure that didn't happen.

It wasn't pretty, but we got the job done – and with the crackling of the flames behind us we returned to the main road with some new information and a tremendously grateful Leto, who encouraged us to visit if we needed help finding our way around Navika-Pura.

As we headed north, Graven and Safira were on their way south following their conversation with Pibraf.  Apparently the pawnchaser that had lined up a job with Raz Pugh in Tuktu was holding a grudge that we'd swooped in to take on the contract – and he was headed to Leopold's with a fresh warrant for Beezaura's arrest.  Pibraf gave us the location of where he could be found and suggested that we "convince" him to change his mind, lest we be looking over our shoulders quite a lot in the coming weeks.

Armed with this knowledge and a rare opportunity to plan our battle tactics in advance, we headed to the abandoned strip mine hoping to catch our fifth wind on a night that never seemed to end.  From a distance we managed to spot a pair of guards on the perimeter manning portable bolt-throwers, which we hoped to commandeer to swing the odds in our favor.

## Trivia

* Natural one count: two natural ones were rolled in this Chapter. 1 each by Riley and Matt.