Draw It Up, Knock 'em Dead

## **Synopsis**

In Chapter 76: Draw It Up, Knock 'em Dead, Graven and Beezaura confronted the inscrutable owner of the Mycrawl den, who was displeased with our presence and even more so by our questions regarding the murdered tiefling.  Shay had some kind of arrangement to provide a safe space for the use of narcotics, though we got the sense that it was profit-driven more than altruistic – and she didn't have much to tell us that we didn't already know.

The one name that resurfaced from earlier was Palomer Franco, a Gentle Void dockworker and tinkerer of magic items, but the connection seemed weak at best – and as Beezaura had learned from Mohan Fowler during their time catching up, he wasn't the kind of guy to talk freely to outsiders.

Determined not to rest before getting something that resembled a lead, Graven suggested we return once more to the Mycrawl dealer Hatchet – but before that, a brief stop at Reciprocity proved to be yet another roadblock with Senka Uberti quite peeved at our questioning of her staff during work hours.  Senka scolded us through a note, but it was nothing compared to the verbal lashing we were about to receive at "All Hands on Deck", where Hatchet laid out what we were learning the hard way – which was that gaining the trust of Navika-Pura's citizens was rarely something that happened over the course of just a day.

Meanwhile, in the outskirts of Na-Upa, we outlined our plan of attack against the Cruxia bandits – starting with a bit of scouting that gave Orba and Safira a chance to sit and mentally ready themselves for a long night that was getting even longer.  Without our full party, we planned to utilize the element of surprise to its fullest – and we spared no resource to push the odds in our favor: ingesting antitoxins, Orba's invigorating urn and even a precious Charcoal and Qhali pellet to neutralize Erland's drunken state that he'd been unable to shake off up to this point.

Hiding in the forest that surrounded the cabin, a coordinated volley of ranged attacks eliminated the man on watch before he could even utter a sound – a promising start allowing Erland to further push the advantage by quietly hiding the body out of sight.  When the next of the Cruxia came to relieve his companion, we employed a similar strategy – but an untimely miss by our guide Yan-Yol allowed the bandit to call for help before succumbing to his wounds.

From this point forward it was a small-scale siege – and oddly enough things were taking a similar turn on the coast, where Beezaura and Graven had taken up Mohan Fowler's offer to use his guest room for the evening.  Unfortunately, the roles were reversed – with unseen attackers infiltrating the house to take a shot at us in our sleep.  The sounds woke Mohan and on both ends all hell broke loose: flashes of steel, loosed arrows, vials of poison and crippling, dark-magic curses.

By playing mostly out of their range, we picked away at the Cruxia until Erland saw an opportunity to end the fight with a close-quarters flurry of blows that utilized a new vine-sprouting skill we hadn't seen before.  Beezaura got revenge on her would-be assassins with a thunderous blow from her flail despite the calls from Graven to leave a survivor – but it ultimately may not have made a difference as Mohan seemed certain he knew why they had come.

With the battlefield cleared, so too was our debt – as a grateful Yan-Yol found the captured Rudhiran still alive and most of their medical supplies intact.  After a bit of scrounging, we began the walk back to the Upa Alehouse while the others surveyed the scene.

## Trivia

* Natural one count: three natural ones were rolled in this Chapter. 1 by John, and 2 by Matt.