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Dragon Heist

Seeing the color change on Matches face, Lox realized what was happening to him. His eyes went wide; but his parents training kicked in quickly. Knowing that he would need to provide a large amount of pressure just underneath the xyphoid to properly expel the air in his lungs, Lox thought quickly and climbed up onto the bar behind Matches, dragging the larger man close. He then clasped his hands together, balling them up, and lifted with all his strength. The gnome heard the retch come from Matches as the cigar flew from his mouth, and Lox was relieved. That relief was short lived though, as he watched the cigar smack the brute between the eyes, and the look the man gave him was enough to cause Lox to cower behind Matches. He whispered to Matches, "Uhh, boss? Once you get your breath back, I think we might have a problem with Andre the giant over there."
 
Matches nods thanks to Lox and puts his hands up palms facing towards the brute. "Let's not get off on the wrong foot big guy. Here's a coin for your trouble." He flips a gold dragon to the man who instinctively grabs it out of the air.

The look on the large man's face turns from angry to confused and back to angry. Turning to his boss he asks "shall I flatten this one?"
 
"Er, Matches? Did you spit a piece of cork at that man?" Duck asks, confused. After all the broken glass flying around and seeing the situation escalating he steps in to try to defuse it. "C'mon fellas, why don't we sit down together and settle this over drinks? I'm sure it's just a misunderstanding." And he smiles widely, showing off all of his sharp teeth.
 
Clearly irritated, the smaller man shakes his head at his bodyguard. "Let's focus on the task at hand, Joe, shall we. We've talked about this... Go and guard the door." Joe slumps off and stands in the doorway. Joe's boss fires a questioning look back at the barman who just shrugs apologetically, clearly used to people treating his establishment with disrespect.

Sighing, the smaller man jumps onto the nearest table and shouts to the gathered tavern patrons. "I have here a bottle of Alchemist's Fire." And he pulls a flask of viscous, pale orange fluid from beneath his cloak. "If it breaks it will explode and burn this tavern to the ground. Along with anyone unfortunate enough to be trapped inside. And Joe," he nods towards the door, "is playing bouncer tonight... If anyone can tell me where the Zhentarim operate from around here, nobody needs to get hurt. You have until the count of ten to cooperate." A pause. "Ten..."
 
"You know that there are a lot of better ways to do this. Arson is very frowned upon in Waterdeep. Secondly, we are looking for the Zhents as well, for obviously slightly different reasons. As to where they operated, it seemed to me that it was in the streets about 3 blocks up and over 2." Ny says somewhat tiredly and growing very annoyed. 'I knew I should have just started casting when they started being stupid. Although knowing that the a**hole has alchemist's fire, is a good thing to know now, instead of later.'
 
In all my years I had never seen someone so stupid. Just so blatantly and frustratingly stupid and I had once knew an Orc called Thumbs with a petulance for accidentally cutting his fingers off. Oh well Ny seems to have things well in hand, smart kid.

That didn't matter though, it never hurt to have a backup plan... I started judging distances to exits.
 
The man atop the table swings around to get a good look at Ny'Veph. "Good lad." He smiles broadly and stows the flask away under his cloak. "Lead the way." He sweeps his arm towards the door then turns back to the crowd. "Just him, mind. In the unlikely event that he's lying to me," he smirks at Ny'Veph "we'll be back. But he'll be pieces." At this the brute at the door nods, grins and cracks his enormous knuckles.
 
Ny'Veph leads the two men back outside to Fillet Lane. The cordon has been removed and the Guards departed with the prisoners and bodies of the dead. A couple of small pools of blood diluted by the continuing rain being the only signs of the recent violence.

The smaller man puffs out his cheeks and lets the air escape through his mouth slowly. "Soooo... We're here? So where's the Zhent base, then? You do understand what will happen to you if you've misled us, right?" And he raises both eyebrows at Ny'Veph and taps a foot impatiently on the wet cobbles.
 
Once the situation de-escalated with Ny being led out the door, Lox came out from behind Matches, running his fingers through his thin beard. Keeping his voice low, he turned his back to Joe and whispered again to Matches and Duck. "So, what's the plan fellas? If you guys want, I can create a distraction so someone can get out and help Ny out. Or I can try and slip out and follow them. Or I guess..." Lox bit his lip as he hesitantly added "I mean, we DO outnumber Joe..."
 
There is goes, that feeling like your stomach fell through the floor. My had balls but it wouldn't do him any good if he got himself killed. The mouthy one made one mistake, he left us with the simpleton, and I could make that alchemists fire look like a candle. No need to go burning a building down around, after all people like this weren't known for their smarts. I laid out the plan,
"Behind the bar Lox, trap door for liquor deliveries, that's your exit. I'll take the bird out the front, don't think this one's of great intuition. Slip the bartender a coin and move as soon as we've got him distracted."

It was time for some clever acting, "what the fuck you think your doing thief?!" Maybe I grabbed bird boy a bit to rough, but we had to sell it. "Do you know who you're fucking with?" A punch to the gut, best may to make it real is to do it for real.

I grabbed him by his robes, and started dragging him to the door. "The fuck out of my way or you'll end up like him!" I didn't break my stride, he'd move if he knew what was good for him...
 
Nodding to Matches, Lox dropped a silver on the bar as he snuck behind the bar towards the trap door. Once he made it out of the bar, the gnome quickly caught sight of the duo holding Ny hostage. Padding quietly along a good distance away, Lox crept from shadow to shadow to stay out of sight. After creeping up behind a crate, unconsciously holding his breath so as to not be loud, he heard footsteps behind him and he turned to see who it was.

His worst fear had come true. As he turned around, Lox saw a giant bird swooping down to pick him in its talons, surely to bring back to its giant nest to feed Lox to its babies after chewing him up. He scrambled backwards, letting out a shrill screech of panic. The crate he was hiding behind made a loud thump as it crashed to the ground, but once his eyes focused in the darkness, he realized that this bird was not swooping down to grab him. It was just Cas, sneaking up behind him. He felt his face and ears go red in embarrassment as he realized what he had just done, and he glanced back at Ny and his captors, waiting to see what they would do.
 
Just as Matches and Duck turn to follow their companions, one of the dockworkers rises from his chair and grabs Duck's sleeve. "Look, I dunno what game your friend is playing but we don't want those other two coming back and taking out their frustration on us when they've finished with him." He tries to give Duck a meaningful stare whilst avoiding looking at his teeth. "The closest Zhentarim warehouse to here is at the end of Castle Lane. It's the one with the snake on the door." He pauses to let the information sink in. "Now, you didn't hear that from me and if you know what's good for ya you'll not show your faces around here again. Me and my friends aren't the violent kind, but we can hold our own in a fight and will defend ourselves if necessary, understood?"
 
Ny turns and looks at the two fellows. "I'm not trying to screw with you. I'm trying to recover something that you'll want." With that being said, he mutters his mage hand and shoots it up to the rooftop and the gutters where he hid the ring. "You see, I'm really sick of the Zhentarim and refused to let them get some treasure from your friends." As the mage hand snags the ring, he brings it back down and hands it to the leader of the two guys. "The snakes are exactly that, snakes and they need their head chopped off. I just didn't know who to try and join that would let me fight them."
 
The bruiser leans in for a look at the ring but his boss takes it in his hand and, giving it the barest of glances, drops it into a pocket inside his cloak. "We'll talk about how that came into your possession later, but you still owe us the Zhentarim base, and I'm getting im..." The sound of the crate hitting the ground causes both men to swing round to stare at Lox and Cassar.

Angry and exasperated now, the smaller man purses his lips and tilts his head towards Ny. "Joe, deal with this one."

Joe reaches out to get Ny in a headlock and his boss continues. "Now, one of you needs to give me the information I'm looking for right now, or this one's neck will snap like a twig."
 
well the kids heart was in the right place and he would have gotten away with it if we were lighter on our feet. No point in hiding anymore once the bad guys know your there. I came around the crate, my hands wreathed in flame. Fuck it must have looked cool.

"Listen shit bird," Sometimes you had to kick the small dog to get him to shut up, "we're after the same thing. We can be friends and you let him go." I let the thought hang in the air a moment, "or you kill him and I make that vial in your pocket look like a birthday candle." To illustrate the point I let the flames in my hands grow, wreathing up my arms.
 
At that same moment, Ny'Veph moved his free arm to grasp the hand of his assailant, making contact with a solid metal band that he wore on his ring finger. Channelling the power of a storm cloud, lightning forked from Ny's fingers, through the man's ring, across the back of his hand and up his arm.

The combination of Matches display and the shock of Ny'Veph's attack caused the brute to release his grip and take a couple of tentative steps backwards. With the smell of burned hair and charred skin lingering in the air he uttered an eloquent "er, boss...?"

Lox stepped out from behind the fallen crate and levelled his bow at the larger man. Clearly confused at how the situation had turned so quickly, and keeping one eye firmly on Ny, Joe took another small step back and pointed. "Boss, there's another one!"
 
One by one, the group surrounding the two enforcers ready their weapons, anticipating the fight. Suddenly, Duck runs out of nowhere, grabs a couple of handfuls of mud from the street edge and flings them into Joe's face, temporarily blinding him and breaking the impasse.

Unused to being intimidated and trying hard not to show his fear, the smaller man pulls out the jar of alchemist's fire and holds it above his head, his hand shaking almost imperceptibly. "You'll rue the day you got in my way." He pulls out the jar of alchemist's fire and holds it above his head. He looks around and clearly decides that it would be a waste to break it here on the wet street. "I'll hold on to this for now, but I assure you it has all of your names on it."

Keeping his eyes on Matches and Ny, who he seems to have decided are the most dangerous, he backs up towards Joe and tells him "we're leaving." He slips the hood of his cloak over his head and a patch of air behind the pair shimmers. Stepping backwards through it, he grabs Joe's tunic and pulls him through too. The air shimmers once more and they're gone.
 
Everyone always has a plan until they get punched in the face. Most days it's better to have the plan and be the one doing the punching. "Hey kid you all right?" Ny looked fine, but you never know.
The team had done well enough, I didn't really understand the sand attack in the middle of the stalemate but everything had turned out okay. These kids keep their cool and didn't panic, that's got to count for something.
 
Ny seriously contemplated letting loose with a firebolt at the flask as the thugs were backing up. 'Those two idiots are way too stupid and dangerous to have a bottle of alchemist's fire at their disposal. I so should take it out of their hands....'. However before he can actually do anything, he sees a weird portal open behind them as they back up.
"By the portal's unholy abyss, what in the hell is that..." Ny mutters as he had never encountered anything of that kind in the past. As they disappear, he starts cussing quietly to himself. "By the bloated queen's poisonous wretched belly! They got away and took the only other clue that we had managed to snag. Drider pus!" Looking up and seeing Matches and the others, he is feeling a bit relieved that they had backed him up. "I'm fine. A**holes got the ring that I took off the dead body. They definitely recognized it as belonging to their order. I had hoped to research it a bit more or use it to get us in the door. Besides pulling my dimwitted and stupid self out of the immediate fire, did you catch any more information?"
 
With nothing left to go on but the tip from the dockworker in the Skewered Dragon, the crew make their way to Candle Lane. No part of the Dock Ward can be described as affluent, but Candle Lane is seedier than most. The buildings on either side are mostly four to five stories high and squeezed tightly together. What little light might pierce through the sliver of
sky visible between the rooftops during the day is absent in the late evening gloom. Ornate streetlamps, installed perhaps in a more opulent era, reach up from the cobblestones, but each is crowned by the splintered glass of vandalisms past and do nothing to lift the murk.

Against the odds one light flickers faintly at the far end of the lane, its feeble light illuminating the wooden door to a dilapidated two-story building.
 
Moving up towards the edge of the building, staying out of the immediate light of the streetlamps, so that he can listen at the door.
 
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