Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Path: netcom.com!netcomsv!decwrl!wupost!howland.reston.ans.net!xlink.net!rz.uni-karlsruhe.de!stepsun.uni-kl.de!sun.rhrk.uni-kl.de!physik.uni-kl.de!kring From: kring@physik.uni-kl.de (Thomas Kettenring) Subject: [Welcome] BT: Lots Of Things Get Pinched Part 2 of 3 Message-ID: <1993Aug15.232757.14176@rhrk.uni-kl.de> Sender: news@rhrk.uni-kl.de Organization: FB Physik, Universitaet Kaiserslautern, Germany Date: Sun, 15 Aug 1993 23:27:57 GMT Lines: 105 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bakr's Tales: Lots Of Things Get Pinched Part 2 of 3 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- After finishing training and studying the next day, we met at the Agora of Tenos. Tarik wanted to buy a new cutlass, and Compass said something about a meeting with some friends of Nikostratos. They departed, and so Ormgwen and me were standing there not knowing what to do. "We could look at some shops," I suggested. "But I guess you have as little money left as I have." "That's right," he answered. "Let's just go to Staphylos's inn, it's enough for a drink." We had not yet left the plaza when a small thin man with shoulder-length blond hair wearing leather armor approached us and asked with a soft voice, "Excuse me, could you please tell me where the city hall is?" Then he smiled in a friendly but extremely stupid-looking way. I extended an arm and pointed to the city hall a few steps away. "It is this very building. What do you want there?" That seemed to confuse him, and he opened his mouth several times but didn't speak. His facial expression changed even more often, and he scratched his head several times. Then I felt a hand in my burnoose. A pickpocket! I turned around and saw a fat man, also in leather armor, with shoulder-length black hair and a tiny moustache, jump a step back and wave his hands in surprise, omit an "ohohoho" sound, turn around and run away. Ormgwen ran after him immediately. When I looked around me I saw that the other one was disappearing rapidly in the other direction. So I just controlled my possessions - nothing was missing - and waited. After a short while Ormgwen came back. "I lost him." "What? How can he be quicker than you?" "I threw throwing-stars at him. Hit his leg. He ran around a corner. I followed him. Saw him disappear into a house. I followed him. Corridor with three doors. First door - kitchen. A woman peeling onions. Looks at me like this." He gaped at me as if I had changed into a horrible monster. "I say, 'sorry. Not looking for you.' Second door - lumber-room. Then the woman comes out of the first door and looks at me like that again. Runs out of the entrance. I think I should better go, so I sheathe my sword, leave the house in an unconspicuous way, like this," he put his hands into the trouser pockets, looked at the sky and whistled, "and turn around the corner. There I find an open back door. That's how he can be quicker than I." "Hm. He didn't steal anything, so it's not that serious." "Didn't steal anything? He has one of my throwing-stars in his leg!" We strolled on. A few houses later Ormgwen asked, "Why did he run away?" "I caught him picking my pockets. I thought you knew that. Why did you follow him?" "Because he ran away. If I had waited until you explained everything to me he would have been long gone." "You have a point there." He twisted and looked at his body from all sides. ----- Later Tarik joined us in the inn. He showed us his new cutlass, and I told him of the two thieves. We talked for a while, and when we wanted to leave, Ormgwen found that his money was gone. The thief had obviously picked his pockets before mine. I paid for him and said, "You should have looked through your possessions immediately!" "And what good would that have been?" "You wouldn't have drunk as much," answered Tarik. ----- One day later, just as we were about to separate and go to our respective sleeping-places, we heard a "Psst" from a dark corner in the street. A stranger who looked as if standing in dark corners and saying "Psst" to passing adventurers were his mission in life - small, unshaved, curly hair, big nose, shabby dark cloak - looked around him cautiously, then opened a bundle of burglary tools. "I think this belongs to you, comrade," he said, looking straight into Ormgwen's eyes and grinning broadly. The burglar was visibly embarrassed. To make a long story short, the man called himself Perieres and was a friend of the two thieves we had met the day before. He had a tip for a burglary but didn't want to ask one of the native experts, for that would mean that certain people would hear of it. He suggested that the seven of us - us four, him, and his friends Stanylos and Olior - break into the house of Battos tomorrow night. He knew that Battos, a merchant and a member of the Council of Twelve, had a chest with a heap of gold standing in his kitchen. And it was not a particularly legal chest. Ormgwen and one or two others should go into the house, and the rest would be look-out men. That looked like overkill to me, but we were so hard up that we could not afford to let this opportunity slip. As for morals, I was now already used to the thought of being a glossed-over thief. We had robbed the orcs' and drow's home, we had stolen that book, why not steal gold for a change? Battos was much richer than we were, and he didn't earn that money in an honest way either. Tarik said, "Normally I'm strictly against anybody doing such a thing... but in *our* case I'll make allowances." "Did I just make out a slight trace of double standard?" Compass asked. Tarik shrugged his shoulders. "It's better to have a double standard, in case one of them breaks." Ormgwen asked Perieres to tell his friends that he'd like his money and throwing-star back too. The thief agreed, and we arranged a meeting in a certain inn at the docks next evening. -- Bakr ibn Ja'far ibn Musa al Mekneshi, apprentice mage aka Thomas Kettenring