When some one asks for help what can you do

[funnylittleclown]

WHO: Five, Slick, and the Doctor
WHEN: 17th - evening
WHERE: Palace of the Doxe and perhaps beyond
WHAT: Plot Roll. A small band of intrepid people set on liberating a young servant from the Bonaccorso’s service.
WARNINGS: Shenanigans and potential violence if they should be discovered.


The lead butler principal attendant was at his post like always. His narrow beady eyes scouring the hallways for any sign of impropriety or any sort of blemish on a vase in desperate need of cleaning. There hadn't been much improvement with the servants since the Doctor's visit and his suggestion that, 'maybe you oughtn't drug them so much,' was utterly preposterous! He had come across a much better and more effective way to keep the younger servants in line. They would be under constant surveillance and guarded. Why he had already called for a pair of the soldiers in the Doxe's employ to stand there by the stairs, keeping those children in line and unfortunately anyone else out...

Comments

[sergeant_slick]

No armor for this one. He could sneak in full plate, but it would be too easy to mess up and give the game away.

So that meant just his bodyglove for a bit of stab protection, and the quietest local clothes he'd found. Because as comfortable as the bodyglove was, the damn thing didn't have any pockets.

And the area was under guard now. Great. "I can deal with two of them," he kept his voice low, speaking to the Doctor and... the kid he'd seen around the place since Sa-Hareth. "But if the alarm gets sounded, we're buggered. Do we have any other entry points here?"

[somebadnews]

Thankfully they didn't gather a bigger crowd for what should be a simple plan. Five has only been peripherally aware of the two he joined, but after looking the other volunteer up and down, he decides he's relatively competent. On the off-chance that they do attract attention, he's confident he can get out with the boy before they even know what they saw.

"It doesn't matter. Just be ready to draw them away from the kid when I go in." All he needs to do is make sure he grabs the right one. Unfortunately their vantage point is lacking, and there are too many that seem to be around the same age. Which would theoretically make it easy for him to blend in, but he'd rather not. It's bad enough that he's still shorter than most of them.

"Well?" He turns to the Doctor, only slightly impatient. He could blink them in, but it's best to save that for when the guards are distracted. "They know you already. Are you welcome enough to do a walkthrough? If you can find out exactly where he is and what he's wearing I won't have to guess."

[funnylittleclown]

Was he welcome enough. He drew in a breath and slowly exhaled it, thinking 'welcome' likely wasn't the correct word for it, but he was quite skilled at making a pest of himself. So that was the plan then. He would go and be his most irritating!

"I'll go and talk to that attendant fellow there. I doubt the guards will bother much with me if its only us speaking. Maybe I can draw him away while Slick sees that the guards are busy? The chaos from a monster attack might be just the thing to allow us to slip inside. Then once the boy is found it will be up to our new friend Five here to make certain he makes it out safely."

A quick teleport would ensure that even if things went sideways the boy would still make it out of this place in one piece.

"Right, best of luck."

With that final word the Doctor stepped round the corner and had already bounced his way up two of the stairs before the guards reacted and brandished their spears at him.

"Oh! What a welcome!" He held his hands up as if in surrender but addressed the principal attendant there who had slithered his way over to the railing to see what was going on, "I only came to see how you were getting on. Has there been any improvement or... oh, from your expression I can see that there hasn't. Well, we can still do something about that. Maybe it needs a firmer hand or an example to be made of one of them..."

A idea blossomed from that one simple statement giving him the courage to shimmy between the spears and approach the principal attendant like an old friend.

"There was a boy who was rather cheeky to me last time. I think that if I..."

The conversation grew softer and much harder to hear as the Doctor and the principal attendant moved away from the stairwell and further down the hall to the man's office. The last that was heard from either of them was the click of a door as it closed behind them but if the plan went well the Doctor intended to discover where the boy he had spoken to was now and once the others rejoined him they could set off from there.

[sergeant_slick]

Five? He'd heard that name around. Still weird that they had so many normal names around here. No time to ask about that, though.

He stays quiet, listening carefully. If things start to go sideways, he'd have to start in on this crazy, stupid plan a bit earlier.

He carefully pulled a leather-wrapped parcel out from his pack, wrinkling his nose as he unties it. Inside, there's a lump of carapace and flesh. He hacked it off one of those things just last night. With a little help from the other off-worlders, he'd kept it on ice until now.

Which means it's still gooey enough on the inside to decorate his sword with some monster blood. And--urgh--his face and clothes as well. That was step one.

Step two was the harder part. The creatures communicated with each other. And the more wary they got, the more they stayed away from people that sounded like threats, trying to pick off weaker targets.

So he'd started learning how to lure them in, by imitating their calls. Come on down! One of your friends is making horrible hissing noises down this alleyway! They've found a snack!

This was the stupidest idea he'd ever had, and he'd had some real awful ones before. But he was committed now. He waited a couple minutes after the Doctor had left, listening to the guards sink back into the tedium of standing watch.

Time to just get it over with.

The sound started as a low rattle deep in his throat, rising up to a screeching howl.

It was a miracle his voice didn't give out. But the critters out on the streets had found it convincing. And from the sound of the guards just about shitting their pantaloons around the corner, it'd convinced them too.

Step three, then. He picked up his sword and the chunk of beast, silently mouthed good luck to Five, then sprinted around the corner, eyes wide. Time to break out another monster voice, one sure to terrify any soldier:

Pissed Off Sergeant.

"What're you just standing there for?" He snapped at the pair of them. "Are you fucking deaf? There's beasts in the palace!" He tossed the chunk of meat down on the floor with a wet smack, storming up to one of them and giving him a hard shake.

"Get those spears out of your asses and defend the palace! Move! Move!" He dragged them away from their posts, leading the way.

[somebadnews]

Five has to hand it to them, they know how to take direction. Even if the plan is simple, he was expecting more push back. He keeps track of where the Doctor heads off to, but he's not able to track him for long before their other cohort takes action and draws his focus.

Slick doesn't explain what he's doing, so Five just cranes his neck over and watches silently with discerning interest. By the time he figures out what his plan is, he's already wishing him good luck and running around the corner to draw the guards with a fairly convincing act.

Well, he had asked for a distraction. He peeks around to see the guards leave their posts, and once he has a clear view, he teleports to just outside of the office the Doctor had disappeared into and crouches behind a large decorative vase to wait. (One advantage to being in this body: it's fairly easy to tuck himself away in spaces.) As soon as whoever he was speaking to leaves and he's sure the Doctor is alone, he'll blink inside so he can point out exactly where this kid is and get them out.

Hopefully before he's mistaken for any of the servants.

[funnylittleclown]

Five wouldn't have long to wait as nearly before his head had fully ducked behind that large vase the door flew open again and the principal attendant came storming out. It was too late in the evening for such distractions. He had the day's work to check and tomorrow's to prepare for but off he went to the servants rooms with the intention of grabbing a small boy up by the ear and dragging him back to his office for a chat.

He might have walked right on by without giving the hallway a second look if he hadn't chanced to look into the glass of the window opposite, notice a fingerprint smudge that needed his immediate attention to wipe away and in doing so notice the small outline of a shadow tucked in behind a vase.

"You there! Come out this instant! GUARDS! GUARDS I NEED YOU!"

The guards meanwhile... were far away, down the stairs and around the corner Slick had led them to. One of them stopped and lifted his spear a little higher at the call as he was gifted with especially acute hearing but what had actually been shouted was difficult to what out.

"Commander. Did you hear that? Was it one of the creatures?"

[sergeant_slick]

Ah, fuck. One of them might've gotten their cover blown. That meant it was even more important to keep the guards distracted. "No. They don't sound like that. Trust me. I've been hunting them for weeks now." That wasn't even a lie there.

"Probably someone finding that bit of monster meat on the floor. The pack's headed this way--" he pointed off in the opposite direction from the scream, "I found them in a disused room, where the lights were out. Don't know if they've been nesting in there. We'll need to alert the rest of the guard to do a full search of the unoccupied rooms."

[somebadnews]

Five really didn't think he'd be the first one to be caught, and he swears under his breath when the loudmouth official catches sight of him. He quickly considers his options; everything from seeing if he could lie his way through the situation to taking the man out. If he'd just look away, he could blink out and let him think he was seeing things, but the man is stubbornly focused on him.

Thankfully, no guards come running, so they must still be occupied with whatever Slick is showing them. It's hard to spot the Doctor from here, so he shakes his head and slowly stands up. He'll give him one chance to walk away.

"No need to shout. I heard you." He offers a tight smile that's just a shade off menacing. But he looks younger than most of the kids here, he's obviously not a threat. "Is there a problem?"

[funnylittleclown]

The knees of those two soldiers following Slick practically knocked as the mention of a nesting grounds shook their resolve. Nesting grounds meant eggs, eggs meant the need for vessels to carry them and one of the soldiers thought to ask...

"How'd they get a nesting grounds into the Palace?"

For some one surely would have noticed that?

This left the principal attendant standing in the hall, alone, and staring at the young boy he had found. A lost noble? A thief? It was difficult to tell by looking and he thought to call out for the guards once again only about then the Doctor popped out of his office.

"Guards? Did I hear you call for the guards? Whatever could be the..." The Doctor paused and looked at Five like some stranger he had never met before, "Oh, I see, you've found a spy."

"A spy!" The poor principal attendant nearly toppled over backwards in his panic. "Of course there is a problem if you are a spy! Guards! Guards? Oh where are those lazy guards!"

"It's better for you they aren't here." The Doctor cautioned if only to keep the man from shouting so much, "We had better handle this ourselves, before Bonaccorso finds out you let a spy in here in the first place. I doubt that would go over very well. Why, you might even end up as one of my projects!"

Those being deadly hinted at acts of torture that the Doctor never actually engaged in but acted as enough threat to pale the principal attendant into swooning back into the nearest chair as the Doctor stepped forward and took Five's arm... to feign at preventing his escape.

"I'll see to him and that other boy. They won't cause you anymore difficulties."

He then leaned forward to whisper quickly to Five while the attendant weighed his options.

"The boy is in the room at the very far end of the hall, across from the broom closet. If we can't make it there together get him out."

[sergeant_slick]

Slick gave the guard an exasperated glare. "Do you think I stopped to quiz them on how they're liking the accommodations? No. I heard a noise, went to investigate, and one of them nearly knocked my block off." For fuck's sake, soldier, how much of a story is he going to have to spin to keep you satisfied? Wasn't his vocal performance on the horrible shrieking noises good enough for you?

"I took a chunk off of it before it scarpered, now I don't know where the damn thing's gone or if it's got friends. Now, where the hell's the rest of the guard detail?"

[somebadnews]

Even after Five had been spotted, he was confident that he had this under control. His co-conspirators lack subtlety when it comes to distractions, but he hadn't needed a whole lot of assistance to perform what should have been a simple task. Then before he could so much as intimidate the man who questioned him, the Doctor cuts in to loudly insist that he's a spy and Five is rendered absolutely speechless. A briefly all-consuming rage rises in his chest, but he manages to only glare between the two of them, baffled at how idiotic the official is to believe the nonsense the Doctor is spouting.

It gets away from him that quickly. The Doctor seems oblivious to his tension and grabs his arm shortly after convincing the man that he's going to dispose of the threat.

"A spy? Really?" Five practically hisses back as he leads him away. He couldn't just say he was a new hire? — They should probably kill the official if he's worried about that coming up again, but Five did come here to get the kid, so he just huffs and looks in the direction he indicated.

He doesn't confirm that he heard the rest of what he said, or acknowledge that he'll follow through with his commitment. As soon as he turns the corner, Five is blinking there to grab the kid and taking them both out. But now that the alarm has been raised, he can feel the eyes on him that keep him from teleporting until they're in the clear.

If the official ends up coming after them, he's got half a mind to leave the Doctor there to explain.

[funnylittleclown]

There was no need to leave the Doctor behind to explain as he was doing that all on his own. The Principal Attendant you see wasn't a horrible sort of person but he was scared, just as scared as the Maids and the young servants under his care. A few stories about all the horrible sorts of things that would happen to him and his family if Bonaccorso learned about any of this had the poor man shaking in his boots. Fortunately there was a way out of this mess... Simply tell any guards that Slick hadn't managed to steer away that one of the monsters had been sighted at the foot of the stairs.

And that boy, the spy... What boy? You see my friend, some times it was better not to admit to having seen certain things. You see this spy was working for Bonaccorso himself. The Doctor had seen him roaming the halls before. But here too was an easy way out of this mess, send this new batch of guards after the monsters and call Slick and his men back to handle the spy. They would take him some where dark and quiet, deal with him and this impertinent servant boy at the same time. Everything would be cleaned up neatly leaving him in the clear.

The Doctor spoke so quickly and with such enthusiasm that it was a bit difficult not to get wrapped up in this odd plot. Any plot holes were quickly glossed over with a frantic, "Well, go on, hurry man! Before its too late!" which sent reason and the Principal Attendant scrambling to the balcony to call out for the guards again.

"Guards! Guards! Captain! We need you up here!"

The Captain he referred to was Slick himself and the two guards that were with him.

"There are a pair of boys up here! They need to be captured! Hurry man! I'll call for some new guards to handle the monsters once you've dealt with these boys!"